When I started youth ministry about 7 years ago I thought I could do it all. I had great ideas for games, sermon series, etc. I did what most of youth pastors would do. I would think outside the box. I even had a sermon about shaping your character and I cut my hair on stage. Even with these great ideas. Kids had so many things going on in their life that I felt sometimes that the message was not getting thru to them. After 3 years in youth ministry I felt I had it, youth is not for me. I’m doing all this things for you Lord but nothing is happening.
I know leaders around me would tell me “even though you don’t see things God is still working.” But honestly I thought that was so cliche. I needed to find a real palpable fruit to say that God is doing something.
During this 3 years as a youth pastor, I attended to my first vineyard retreat and in one of the youth pastor meetings I received encouragement when I least expected it. I presented myself to the group and I told them that it was my third year doing ministry. The first thing that one of the pastors told me was congratulations, you beat the statistics. Now you are not part of the average. Most youth pastors after 3 years leave youth ministry. Those words were stuck into my brain so much that I really felt like I was in the matrix movie being the one “NEO” and telling people around me “I know kung fu”..
This moment to me was epic. I was beating the odds. To think that I was beginning to understand the words – “even though you don’t see things God is still working!” I realized that at that moment I was not only placed there to lead youth, I was placed there to let God shape me, mold me, change me, and transform me.
Right now you might be in a place where you don’t see anything changing. God is still working. To motivate you further, Isaiah 55:8 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways,declares the Lord.” See, even if you think that things are not going your way, God comes to you and says “whatever you are thinking, I’m not thinking like you, I think you are valuable.”
You want to find encouragement where you least expect it, please start by looking at your weaknesses. God takes pleasure in making something out of nothing. Allow Jesús to speak to you (Listen), Allow Jesus to change your perspective (let him LOVE YOU) and allow Jesus to lead you in ways that you can’t imagine. Dream big and dream impossible things because God works in the midst of impossible things that no man can do.
- From the Pulpit to the Heart - September 28, 2018
- Encouragement When You Least Expect It - September 13, 2018
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