Over the past months, I have been going through an unusual time in my life. By reading Francis Chan's "Crazy Love", I was convicted specifically of being luke-warm in my faith as discussed in Revelations 3, and serving God left-overs rather than my best. I am still digesting all of this as I write, and I am still not certain how to proceed.
I have realized that I have been trying to do things in my power, by my will or control (which is truly an oxymoron if you think about it), and staying safe in what I am comfortable in. I know I must live more by faith but not certain exactly what that means. Specifically how do I lead my family to do this? How do I lead the adults who help serve in the student ministry? How do I lead the students?
This has been a difficult process and it is causing me to examine myself. Am I the leader to lead students to the next level? Am I going to be able to survive the pace of our church (which if you don't know is quite fast & unusual based on the things God has done in our church)? How can I be in this church that I love so much and survive for the long haul? The way that I am handling things is wearing me out, so what must I do to change in order to not only survive, but also to God-willing thrive in leading students to becoming lifelong followers of Christ who are passionate about their faith.
I would love to shoot whoever said following after Christ is easy. There are a lot of guys today who say that if you follow Christ, you can name whatever you want, and you will be blessed and get that. You will have the health you want and all the wealth you want. This could not be further from Scripture, but I see that it is affecting our students today. When real life happens, it causes them to question their faith. Why does bad things happen to good people? Why would God allow suffering? could it be that here in America we have become too accustomed to the good times and haven't experienced the persecution or enough bad times for us to trust in the Father? Actually the people of Israel did this too! But the reality is that I think if we don't watch ourselves, we will too and maybe that is what I have been doing myself.
