Not in Kansas anymore

By Jeff Becraft

Recently, I started a new Facebook page in order to post weekly devotionals. I am not a big social media person. In fact, I made a post on my own personal page one time and a guy thought someone had hijacked my account and put a post on there.  But it is a venue that reaches some people and if I want to help shift the vision of people’s lives…

The cover photo on the new page is from a roadside in southern Utah. A friend of mine named Brad commented, “That doesn’t look like South Carolina to me.” I commented back that he was right… it was from southern Utah.

The thing is we get so used to our own surroundings or our own routines… and our own expectations. The landscape in southern Utah was dramatically different. It was so new.

Back in the Youth Corps days, for Leadership Weekend when we would take the bus to Camp Cooper, every single year I would tell our alumni and the staff at Camp Cooper that I wanted a big welcome when the students came off the bus. There are a lot of principles behind that, but one of them was (and I would use this statement), “I want ‘em to know they’re not in Kansas anymore.” In other words, they’re getting ready to embark on something brand new. They can’t just settle back into what they’re used to.

What is the expectation of a group of young people that don’t know one another coming off a bus after an hour and a half bus ride? They might be thinking, “Hey, I’m just getting off the bus and I’m going to collect my luggage and I’m going to go to where check in is or wherever.”

But that wasn’t the case at all. They were getting ready to enter into a new vision of what their lives could be. One of our alumni, Daisy, even said one time, “They have no idea what is getting ready to happen to them.”

And that’s the point.

Again, there were many principles about the big welcome and coming off that bus… but sometimes we just get used to what is around us. And we can simply settle in with the expectations of whatever that is.

Today is a new day. And we don’t know what this day holds. But if we just simply hold on to what we’re used to or what we’re expecting, then we’ll miss out on the excitement and the adventure of what this day can hold.

So, when you get out of bed each day… or if you want to put it in these terms – get off the bus… realize there’s a wide-open world out there. And right now, a world with a lot of hurting people in it. We can be part of bringing encouragement into their lives.

So, keep that in mind as you go throughout this day.

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Our Place of Hope is a paradigm shift for people living with mental illness that encourages them to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. You can connect with Jeff at  [email protected].