What's This Week's Verse?!?

This summer, I was blessed with the opportunity to finally work at a place God had laid on my heart to work for quite some time: South Mountain Baptist Camp. God worked in many powerful ways this summer, giving me experiences and friendships that I could have never possibly imagined. 

Every summer at South Mountain, there is always a theme and a Bible verse. For the summer of 2013, our theme was "One Shining Moment", and the verse(s) was: Philippians 2:14-15. 

Philippians 2:14-15 says: "Do everything without grumbling or complaining, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God, faultless in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky."

I absolutely LOVE this verse! I think that it is extremely uplifting whenever the circumstances or situations in your life get you down. This summer, I showed my love for this verse SO much, that I pretty much mentioned it every day! Every time I heard another staffer start to complain about something, I would always jokingly ask him/her: "What's this week's verse?!?" 

Looking back, I know I was always halfway joking when I said this to another staffer. And because of that, it has now caused me to think. I think it's funny how, as Christians, we can sometimes get so comfortable with certain things, that we sometimes allow them to lose meaning to us. You see, in my situation, I knew that the Bible had called all believers to do all things without grumbling or complaining; yet, I would allow myself to get so caught up in the routine of saying my same expression, that I began to not even take myself seriously. 

I realized this whenever I started thinking about going back to school. I started to think about how much I dread going back to school: especially since I attend a University in which being a believer makes you somewhat of a minority. I started complaining to myself about how I didn't want to go back, how I liked being at camp with all of my awesome Christian friends, how I knew this was going to be a really tough semester, etc. But, as I started to have all of these thoughts, I found myself suddenly thinking, "What's this week's verse?!" 

Philippians 2:14-15 wasn't just "This week's verse": it should be a true life verse to all Christians. God has given each of us a beautiful life to live: a life that we get to live in His Son's name. So, no matter what situation or circumstance you find yourself in, understand that life is not meant for grumbling or complaining....and if we keep our focus on Jesus, we would find that there is absolutely nothing in this world worth complaining about anyways.