Yesterday was the third day of BaseCamp here in Petal and it was a learning experience.  The entire week has been, but yesterday was a chance for my kids, and for me, to learn about what grace looks like.

When you are working on yards, sometimes, most times, things are perfect.  Sometimes the work doesn’t go right, or the machines don’t work right or the people aren’t just pleased with the work.

We had a family we were working with this week and things just weren’t going right.  Folks were working hard and trying their best, but it just seemed like nothing was going as it should.  And plus everyone was hot and tired after a long few days of work.

As my crew was driving to our next site, some of the kids were talking about things weren’t going right and I saw a moment. I don’t preach to my kids a lot, I’m a preacher, that’s what they’d expect 🙂

What I do is try to use the stuff that we are doing each day to relate our work to the grace of God. Well, we were talking how we needed to love this family, even though they weren’t always easy to deal with.

And I told them, that’s what God does for us. We aren’t always easy to deal with. We don’t do what God wants. We do wrong. And, you know God must get frustrated with us sometimes. You know He just must be tempted to be fed up with us sometimes.  It’s got to happen.

And, how does God respond?  He responds with love.  No matter how frustrated He may be, no matter what we may have done, He responds to us with love.  He loves us, not matter what.

And because we’ve been loved that way, we are called to love one another in that same way. Even when it’s hard. Even when we don’t want to. Even when we are tired. God loves us no matter what; we are called to love each other.

That’s what BaseCamp is teaching these youth, and reminding us adults!