Compare Backwards, Not Sideways...

Comparison can destroy us or embolden us.  Doesn’t it really depend on what we are comparing?  We just have to leave everyone else out of the equation.  

Last week, I was standing in a very familiar spot in an auditorium in Dillon, Montana. I was surrounded by students from Utah Valley University and the University of Utah on their knees or hands raised high.  It was beautiful.  It was celebratory.  It was not as it always had been.

Six years ago, we were in this exact same spot, except that there was a very new Chi Alpha at Utah Valley University and no Chi Alpha at the University of Utah.  We still made the trip to Dillon, Montana that year.  The entourage consisted of 5 people: Daran, me, and three staff members - no students.  

At the time, Abby and I were tasked with hanging up signs around the room for each campus that was there.  There had never been a Utah sign, so we set to work making one.  We hung it up on the wall and noticed that it paled in comparison to the other more professional looking signs.  The letters were skinny and wobbly and you had to get really close to it to see what it said, but we had a sign.  The sign was a little like us.  You had to get close to see that we were even there.  

As I compare backwards to that moment, I am emboldened by what the Lord has done through us.  The spot that we seem to sit in every year, is the spot where the sign was years ago.  Now there is no sign, but there are STUDENTS to replace the sign.  This year, I sat and watched as two of our staff members emceed the event.  I went to two different workshops filled with our loud, cheering students led by two different Utah staff members.  I visited the missions room where one of our students was called to go to Kyrgystan this summer knowing that one of our staff members put the whole room together with the help of our students.  I helped at the Diversity booth with our Congolese and Phillippino students.  (By the way, we are the most diverse Chi Alpha group in our region.) I sat and listened as one of our Congolese students led the entire auditorium in prayer.  You don’t have to look very hard to see Utah XA in the room anymore.  

Now here is the rub, if I compared sideways, I could be disappointed.  Utah has some of the toughest soil in the nation and tilling it has been difficult.  Comparing sideways to other groups in the nation with our size of incredible staff team is not a wise idea.  Six years with this staff team on another campus in another state would have massive impact with numbers in the 100s, but we are Utah.  What has occurred here is miraculous and emboldens me for the future.  If I look sideways, I am disappointed.  So I’ve decided to look backwards and leave others out of the equation.  Maybe you should do the same.