but, what do i love when i love my god?

I'll just say it plain: I had a bad day in ministry today. One of those days when the students I work with just didn't engage, when nothing seemed to work, when they didn't want to be there. And because they don't want to be there, I didn't want to be there. I found myself wondering, "what's the point?" Why make them come to something they hate? I've tried re-imagining what youth ministry looks like. I've tried everything I can think of from games, to discussions, to worship, to small groups, to interactive prayer. I've tried to simply be present, to listen, to relate. But today, they looked disinterested and bored. They talked to each other, and rolled their eyes, and wanted to be doing anything else. I crave for them to connect with God, but today I confess that for a moment, I thought, "If they don't want to, there's nothing I can do. I give up.

But when I came home, Kyle was telling me about a passage from Augustine's Confessions that he had been reflecting on, and it reminded me of something beautiful. Instead, of asking, "why don't they care? why don't I feel more respected and appreciated? why do I do this? what is the point?" This amazing passage re-oriented my thoughts, and breathed life into my faith at the moment I needed it most, by asking a question that is bigger than all my negative thinking:

"What do I love when I love my God? Not material beauty of a temporal order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self,when it listens to sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire. This is what I love when I love my God.

But what is my God? I put my question to the earth. It answered, "I am not God, and all things on earth declared the same. I asked the sea and the chasms of the deep and the living things that creep in them, but they answered, "We are not your God. Seek what is above us." I spoke to the winds that blow, and the whole air and all that lives in it replied, "I am not God." I asked the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars, but they told me. "Neither are we the God whom you seek." I spoke to all the things that are about me, all that can be admitted by the door of the senses, and I said, "Since you are not my God, tell me about him. Tell me something of my God." Clear and loud they answered, "God is he who made us.” I asked these questions simply by gazing at these things, and their beauty was all the answer they gave…

I know that my soul is the better part of me, because it animates the whole of my body. It gives life, and this is something that no body can give no another body. But God is even more. God is the Life of the life of my soul."

So, today I am reminded of the Life, who gives life to my soul. The one whose embrace is never severed. The one who I taste, see, and feel in the deepest unexplainable ways. The one who is expressed in all the beauty that springs out of creation, but is more than the sum of all created things and beings. So, the question of why I do ministry has a simple answer: because I love my God, and the question of who I love when I love God is one I want to spend my life contemplating.

The question of who we love when we love God, is why we try to find God's presence in worship, why we talk about our faith, why we argue about theology, why we struggle to re-imagine the church in a way that is relevant. Today, I will not throw in the towel. Today, I will pray that the God I love will be present in ways I cannot begin to imagine, and that I, and every student I work with, will come to know the one we love in a deeper way.