Soaring Upward on Thermals

Spring Semester is here!

In the Kingdom of God at UC Berkeley, students and staff alike are learning a new way of participating in what God is doing. It looks like this:

http://www.3sigma.com/prisoners-of-our-own-device/

We are learning to identify the spiritual thermals (rising columns of warm air) that already exist all around us and to soar with them to new heights. Instead of madly flapping our wings (read: recipe for burnout) in an attempt to gain altitude, we're taking a lesson from the birds God has created and trusting that when we do less, He does more.

Since we are people, not birds, what does this look like?

1. Communal prayer is happening more often! We have two weekly student-led prayer times, asking God to show us what He's up to in the lives of our friends, classmates, focus groups, and the world.
2. We are opening up more about our struggles. It takes a lot of faith for students to put down their polished masks and trust that it is actually good for our community and for our relationships with God to come clean about what's underneath: the darker stuff that goes largely unacknowledged by a highly competitive campus environment.
3. We are taking to heart what God tells us and making new choices. For many of the students, this looks like pursuing something that they are deadly afraid to fail at because it actually matters to them, like music and writing for some of our Electrical Engineering Computer Science (EECS) folks. For others, it looks like finally acknowledging workaholism is tied to pride in one's performance and trusting that letting go of some units is actually a faithful and God-honoring choice.

Wow! Praise God for the ways that He's engaging our whole community in this dynamic shift. It's not a brand-new concept, but there's a newness of hope and joy that I'm seeing each day and in each interaction with students. Please join me in celebrating and praying for more release of God's gifts within these beautiful sons and daughters!