Our Young Life Fundraising Banquet is tomorrow night. And while I'm excited to share with 500+ people the ways which we see Christ work through the ministry of Young Life, I'm feeling like Henri Nouwen did when he wrote this:

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people,enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be knowas someone who wants to live with them. It is a privelage to have the timeto practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simpleas it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, orto be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken upby meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me fromwalking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organizepeople around an urgent cause, and not feel that you are working directly forsocial progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn'tbe to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to theirstories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but you truly love them."

I can't wait for heaven when I read this... because we won't be bound by the context of time, and we won't be tempted to prove ourselves by what we do because we will be perfectly one with the One who makes us who we are--who breathed life into us and sustains our lives--eternally.

I also can't wait for heaven to meet Henri Nouwen. And C.S. Lewis. And Mrs. Audrey Wetherell Johnson. And Mrs. Henrietta Mears. And Pam Young Lippert. --all people whom I've never known, but whose lives have changed mine radically.

So throw progress out the window today--I will too, even as we plan the last minute details of this banquet--and spend some time sharing loving words, drinking milkshakes together, hugging the brokenhearted, and drinking in the blessing of the ministry of presence.