I Want to Know You More

Last year at camp, we had our youngest campers of the summer. We had a day camp for grades K-2 for 3 days, and ended with a one night stay with the K-2 campers and a parent. These kids were so lively and full of energy, and every moment was exciting around them. They took in all of the experiences of camp with arms outstretched and eyes wide open. They would run from activity to activity, not wasting even an extra second of action for the few short days they were here.

As the camp administrator, I don't get to be super involved in the program. After all, I have many administrative duties that don't stop during the week, but I try to be involved at least a little bit each day, because of course, I love camp, and I love hanging out with the campers as much as I possibly can.

At Me & You camp, the campers came on Friday afternoon, ate dinner, did some activities, I lead songs at the campfire that night (which the kids AND the adults thoroughly enjoyed!), and we ended the night with the camp tradition of a lane walk. It's a walk in the dark that campers take down the lane at the end of the night as a way to wind down for bed and prepare for the next day. I had not had the time to join for a lane walk yet, so I wanted to join the Me & You campers for Friday night's walk. I was heading up the rear of the group with a young boy I had met earlier in the week at Mini Camp. He was very talkative and have lots of interesting things to say. Tonight, he was singing lots of classic rock songs, including Benny and the Jets and Piano Man, and knew an impressive amount of words to these songs, at that. I would sing along with him for the words I knew.

Then he started singing a song a vaguely knew called "I Want to Know You More" which is a more recent contemporary Christian song. I cold vaguely recall the melody, but he sang the chorus proudly. I said that one was a good song, and of course, he agreed. He then proceeded to tell me how he would like to get to know me more. I told him to do that, he would have to keep coming to camp and he would get to know more things each year. But then, as he continued talking, I realized I had misheard him. He didn't want to get to know me more. He wanted to get to know GOD more, which of course, is what the song is about!

Once he and I were on the same page, I told him that there was A LOT to know about God, and he could spend the rest of his life just getting to know Him, and still have more left to know. He said he knew that, but was content to learn what he can, little by little, in moments like these at camp and at church.

The group then fell silent as we were told to look up at the stars and find a few. It was a hazy night, so there weren't many stars to see. However, the longer we looked, the more glimmers of light we saw peek out of the haze. The stars were there, we just had to take the time to patiently look for them, until they would reveal themselves, either from the clouds parting, or from our eyes adjusting to see more of the stars that were there.

While doing this, my heart was touched by the little boy I was talking to. He had such. genuine desire to get to know God more at the ripe old age of 6. And as we looked into the stars, and the kids and adults were fascinated by what they saw, it reminded me of how we are all on a constant journey of getting to know God more. At first, He seems hazy, and far too big to comprehend or pick out any details. But the more we look, and the more we desire to see Him, His face is revealed to us, little by little, as glimmers of His hope and peace peek out from the clouds.