Ministry is friggin hard. Remember when things were easy? I remember, when I was younger, my mom would pick out my clothes for me AND make my lunch. The hardest thing I had to do was to get out of bed AFTER she woke me up. But now we have to do things like balance love and discipline. We have to walk a line where people can share their short-comings with us and we support them in their attempts and figure out how to love them in their rebellion.
What is love when someone doesn't think what they are doing is wrong? How do you love a kid while they are blatantly living outside of God's guidelines for their own safety? I am not a parent, but some kids today don't have parents. Who rebukes? Who loves? Who comforts? Who restricts? I don't know. How can I have been doing youth ministry for 7 years and feel like I know so little?
My heart breaks for these kids, seeing the things they are going through outside of their control. My heart breaks to see the decisions they choose to do sometimes. What can be done? What can change? Where is there hope?
At then end of the day, I know a few things to be true. In no particular order....Hope is found in Jesus alone. Hope for change (sorry Obama). Hope for peace. Hope for character. God has not called me to be the changer of all things negative in youth culture. God has shared His heart with me for specific teens. He has given me hope for them even if they have none for themselves. He has given me His heart so that I might share it with them....period. Jesus poured into Judas for 3 years; what did Judas do? He betrayed Jesus and handed him over to die. We say that so easily, but if one of my guys betrayed me and I died because of it people would not take that lightly, but we do...why is that?
God has called me to love. God has called me to follow His voice. God has called me to be faithful to His plans for my life, not His plans for their lives. Give me the wisdom to see the difference.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment