Lately, God has been very real to me. It's not like I walk around holding an imaginary hand (which I have done before, after I read the Shack). But more like I can understand his infinite wisdom just a fraction of a piece more. For the last 4 years I've been studying for ministry, and before that, I have known that God had called me to youth ministry since I was 15. But I never really understood, and especially never really agreed that it was a good idea. I took comfort in phrases like "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called," and "God picks the little guy," that sort of thing. But I wondered how I, someone who never felt like they fit into youth group, who never was good at games or sports, who was a "leader." I'm the youngest of my siblings, the youngest in my class usually, and just sort of average. I've never been the smartest, fastest, the strongest. The only thing I've ever really been is the tallest, but what good is that really?
When I was leaving for Africa, a few days before, my pastor called me and told me that I could get up in front of the church and ask for donations. I left in a few days, and technically, I thought I still needed 2,000 dollars. But actually, my step mom had already given the money. So, my pastor introduced me in the first service, and in the second, he had to be across the street, so my old youth pastor, then the Small Groups pastor at our church introduced me. In front of the whole church, he told how, when he was the youth pastor, I was always the first kid to introduce myself to a new kid, to talk to them, to try to bring them into a group, make them feel welcome. He spoke so kindly and highly of me, that i forgot he was talking about me. And then I remembered how I had felt when I first felt called to Youth Ministry. I thought, "Yes, I can finally make some kids feel welcome, so they never have to feel like they don't belong." And that is why God called me. I may not be the best at anything conventionally expected from a youth pastor, I may not be able to win "Chubby Bunny" or drink half a gallon of milk without puking, I don't even WANT to do those things. But I can connect with kids, talk to them, show them how important they all are, help them to be a part of things.
I don't want my ministry to be constantly striving for something that I always lacked in my own life, it can never be that. But in my life, I am learning more and more how much God can work in me, how the more inadequate I feel, the more I allow him to take over, the more adequate I become. While in Africa, I had the opportunity to share my testimony and what I planned to say, and what came out were so totally different. I spoke of how God proved strong in my weakness, how the very fact that I knew I would be an absolutely horrible youth pastor was what made me realize that I could do it. If I would be a great Youth Pastor, I would not be a minister of Jesus Christ, I would just be a fun kid. But since I think I am going to be a terrible Youth Pastor, I know that all of my strength, all of my good ideas, everything good will come not from me, but from the one who created me to be. I am an instrument of love and I am ready and willing to be used by my master, for the very purpose I was created, and I finally have the opportunity to let myself go and be used, totally available to him and it is like no other freedom I have ever experienced. God is good, all the time and ALL THE TIME! GOD IS GOOD!
