Beach Reach 2014: Disappointment and Resting in the Bigger Picture

A row of short people + one tall guy

I would like to be able to write a post saying how I had a great time at Beach Reach and I walked away from it with no regrets and fully satisfied with how the week went.

But I can't. 

If I were honest, when I stepped off the van at the WT BSM yesterday, I was stepping off with a heavy weight of disappointment.

It's not that the week was bad for me - far from it, actually. I got to share the Gospel with a lot of people. I had the best Midnight Breakfast night of my three years. I got to spend time outside my comfort zone on the beach. I was part of an awesome team. All things considered, it really was an good week. 

Why then was I disappointed? Simple: Beach Reach was underwhelming this year. Compared to the first two years (especially last year), this year was an absolute cakewalk. 

Beach Reach, in my mind, didn't really begin until Thursday. The days prior had been wrecked by  unpleasant weather - the sun did not come out until Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday was so windy it made Amarillo look tame. We didn't have to clean the beach on Tuesday because nobody had been on the beach and so there was nothing to clean up! But even with the weather complications, it gets very frustrating to hear friend after friend after friend tell stories of long conversations with atheists/agnostic/skeptics/universalists/ect and not think "why is everyone else getting all the exciting conversations?!" It's annoying to have to hear story after story of exceptional and exciting conversations and have nothing to share other than the general "yeah, we picked up a lot of people and the conversations went great."

All this to say: I was disappointed because the trip didn't go the way I wanted it to.

I wrote before the trip began how I wasn't ready or prepared for the trip, spiritually/mentally/physically. I made that remark thinking that I wasn't ready in terms of health, or spiritual strength, or getting into that missional mindset, but it seems that I was missing one major ingredient of preparation: surrender. Surrender to God to let the trip flow how He wished it, surrender to God my expectations and standards to evaluate the trip by, surrender to be used however He wished me to be used regardless if it was how I personally wished to be used. It wasn't until I was riding on the van back home that I realized that I had carried a heavy baggage of expectation that was crafted based off my personal desires (all inspired by the nearly flawless Beach Reach 2013), and that by living the week out with that unconscious expectation, satisfaction and joy has thus eluded me - at least, it will stay away from me if I continue to see the trip through the lens of me.

The question that God is pressing into my mind as a result of Beach Reach is a question of grounding joy. Will I ground my joy (or lack thereof) in *my* trip, *my* conversations, *my* work, or will I ground my joy in the fact that 104 people were raised from death to life through the proclamation of the Gospel in Satan's backyard? Will I focus on *my* life, *my* experience, *my* story, or will I rejoice in the fact that people were saved from eternal separation as a result of our collective ministry? 

The struggle at the moment is dying to my personal disappointment and resting in the bigger picture. I'm still wrestling through it at the time of this post, but then again, I'm also exhausted. Hopefully, as the post Beach Reach season begins, this joy will become solidified in my heart and will lead to an outpour of the Gospel in every area of my life in the real world.

/end Beach Reach 2014