"If we do what God says, we will be surprised by joy." - Sue Sanders

While in Washington this September, my friend Sue and I talked for hours upon hours.  I often had a small notebook handy to write down her many words of wisdom along with other historic facts Ron was sharing and recipes.  A theme that ran through many of my notes was about obedience to God.  Often this is a topic that makes me bristle.  I am not sure exactly why because I tend to be a rule follower.  Perhaps because I often associate suffering with obedience.  The above statement is one of the first things I wrote in my notebook and throughout conversations with Sue and reflections upon my own life, I realized the truth in it.  

During one of my discussions with Sue, whose involvement with BSF has spanned somewhere around 50 years, I admitted that I was not planning to do BSF this coming year,  I said it with a bit of fear and trembling and a fair amount of embarrassment.  After years of involvement in BSF and serving as a teaching leader in Uganda for 7 years I, I have spent the past 5 years as a class member in a Satellite group that met at my church.  In spite of the convenience of location and comfort of friends in the group, I was a terrible class member.  I was late or I missed class.  I rarely had a completed lesson.  I wasn't faithful to pray for prayer request.  I didn't attend lectures or read my notes.  However with the option to watch the lecture on line and listen to the notes via audio, this past year I was a better participant in those areas.  If the group had larger attendance I found I was more reluctant to share. A cloud of shame followed my participation in BSF and I had concluded it was time to do something else though I wasn't sure exactly what.

Therefore I was a bit hesitant when I told Sue.  Her response was "of course you shouldn't be a class member in BSF.  You should be teaching a bible study." With the fear and cloud lifted, I told Sue how for a couple of years I had felt like I should be leading a bible study for some of the twenty somethings I work with at the day school..  Fear and uncertainty had kept me from doing anything about it.  Sue gave me encouragement and a plan. I returned home knowing what I needed to do but struggling to set it in motion.

After about 2 weeks of hesitation yet feeling the strong conviction I was suppose to do something, I finally blurted out to this young co-worker, "I have been thinking about having a bible study, would you be interested in coming?" Alyssa is this very shy 20 year old whom I don't really know that well and when her face lit up and she said "yes," I was surprised and elated.  It was more than a week later before I got up the nerve to approach my 22 year old classroom co-worker with a similar question.  Her response was that of questions, "when, where, who, and can I bring my puppy." I was not bolstered with a lot of confidence by her response.  Therefore it was quite a surprise when within a couple of days she had invited another girl, who invited two more and they figured out a time and day we could meet.  Next thing I knew, I had 5 girls  planning to start a bible study at my house on Monday nights.

Except for one girl who had to miss the first night, for four weeks these five young ladies have been coming to my house to learn how to do homiletics as we have worked through the book of Philippians, one chapter at  a time.  What started as the plan of a concentrated one hour of real bible study has turned into about an hour and a half  of bible discussion with my often having to gently send them off an hour or so later so I can go to bed.  Ranging from 20 to 27 years old these ladies represent a real variety in ethnic, social and church backgrounds. They are friends forged from working together at school and I love to see the unity in diversity sitting on my front porch.  We started on the porch but the time change and colder weather sent us inside this week.

The best way to describe this experience is to go back to the statement I started this story with.  Oh the surprise of joy this reluctant step of obedience has brought me.  I am surprised by their eagerness to come.  When I asked if they wanted to take a week off before we started doing homiletics on the gospel of John and  they said "no, lets meet next week."  They seem excited though slightly nervous to start doing homiletics on the passage before coming on Mondays.  Thus far we have been walking through it together.  They seem to want to hang out with me, twice their age, and that really surprises me.  Leading them is keeping me committed to doing my homiletics and being prepared.  And I love being able to teach and share truth with them. This little step of obedience, this gathering of young women at my home, has truly surprised me with it's joy,