The Invisible Will Move the Visible

by | Sep 7, 2018 | Moments of Grace

Typically, at least for me, this “job” of being a student pastor is never ending.  I always hear at our staff meeting around May that our slow season is about to start, and I’m always thinking, “Nope!”  Now I’m sure I can blame some of the busyness on myself and my poor planning, but my summers are full with missions trips, camps and service projects, and truthfully I love it.  I like to travel and I love taking the students out of their comfort zones and giving them opportunities to take risks.  But somewhere between the end of July and the second week of August I begin to have a panicked feeling of not being prepared for the (rapidly approaching!) school year. 

We kicked off the summer this year with a mission trip to Puerto Rico that was amazing and I hope the first of many to come. While I was in Puerto Rico I was reading John 3 and this jumped out at me, “Unless a person submits to this original creation- the Spirit hovering over the water- creation, the invisible moving the visible,” and I realized: that’s where I want to live.  Man, I just love that Jesus references Genesis 1, and depending on the translation, “The Spirit hovering over the chaos.”

Student ministries is often described as “controlled chaos,” and maybe it’s just me, but I feel there are lots of times it just feels like chaos.  This imagery of God’s Spirit hovering over the chaos of my life and the lives of the students has just brought me such great peace.  The Lord is not worried about the chaos.  He is not scared of the chaos.  He is not surprised by the chaos.  He hovers.  And He speaks something into existence and says that it is good.  So may you join me in knowing that when the students won’t stop talking; or you find a student vaping in the lobby; or you are trying to navigate how to help a student who lost a friend to suicide; or there just doesn’t seem to be enough time or money — know that God’s Spirit is hovering. And that as we acknowledge and participate with that Spirit, “the invisible will move the visible.’

Andrew Edwards
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