I was involved in an event this past weekend. A large youth worship gathering. The organizer had seen a vision of thousands of young people worshipping God in a field. So, he set out to verify his vision thru asking of people and appealing before God. For a couple of years, he planned and enlisted others to help him. The culmination of that vision was this past weekend. Overall, it went ok, at least from my vantage point.
Now, I know few of the intimate details of the event, the planning, the praying or even of the vision itself. And, I will admit to a certain level of cynicism. However, I had heard that they had hoped for 40,000 people. And then was told that 3500 had pre-registered. As I looked upon the field, I figure there certainly weren’t MORE than 3500 people, in fact, it looked like fewer than that. The word on the street was that promotion was nearly non-existent. I know that I had not know about it from the production people, I would have never known about it. They must have “lost” some serious money on the event.
And the weather… The weather for the event itself was fairly nice. A bit hot and humid, but no threatening clouds in the sky. However, an immense thunderstorm 32 hours prior forced a no-go on the dress rehearsal of the program. The first time we went thru the program was when it was happening. There were multiple minor glitches. Nothing major, and, hopefully, nothing that distracted the people from the overall message and worship experience.
I don’t know… the weather, the program, the lack of people…
Do you question the vision? The execution? Is “failure” a word in this situation? What did God really want out of this? What did man want? Did it meet the criteria of the vision even if, on paper, it looked like it didn’t?
I know I’m treading on thin ice with these questions. But, I wonder for my own life or in other situations, how does one handle what God calls us to do only to find that what we thought was going to happen, didn’t? Is it God’s fault? Man’s? Circumstances? Satan?
I could go on in my thought process on this. It’s a question that I have thought about my whole life and am constantly aware of. This was just another example of that. We as Christians often just say, “well, that’s how God wanted it to work out!” I applaud this to a point. However, if we fail to do our part (no marketing) how do we expect it to work out as revealed in our original vision? Am I doing my part in my own life?
