Eyes on the prize

Last night while I was reading from the book of Galatians I noticed something that really stuck out to me,

1Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

Our Senior Pastor announced on Sunday that he had accepted a position at another church. This introduced all sorts of uncertainty in our lives, but God, knowing my human tendencies, practically screamed this verse at me Sunday night, letting me see that He has everything under control. Then this morning I came across this story from ESPN's Page 2:

Studies of crashes during aircraft landings under difficult circumstances, he said, showed that pilots who made bad mistakes when approaching an airfield and crashed, but lived to tell the tale, reported that they had been focused on avoiding obstacles. Pilots who made difficult landings without incident reported they had focused solely on the runway. Business and artistic success, Costello continued, follow the same pattern. Setbacks result from constantly trying to avoid obstacles, worrying about what might go wrong. Achievement results from keeping your eyes glued to the prize and endlessly repeating to yourself, "I can do this." Or, as I once wrote, "Keep your gaze in the distance, and though you will stumble, you will reach your destination."

God is in control of our lives. He directs the events that happen and He is in everything we are doing. I'll leave you today with this thought from the apostle Paul:

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

If we keep our eyes on Heaven, we will not be shaken either.

-Jeff-

Christians in Sports

I'm always interested in hearing about Christian Athletes playing professional sports. I loved the story about John Kitna's concussion and how he believed that God healed him. But sometimes it seems like athletes only pay lip service to God (and Christians in general too). Rarely do you hear about anyone's struggles with their faith.



That's why I found this article about Paul Byrd so refreshing. He acknowledges that there are times when Christians struggle, talks about his own temptation to cheat or look at porn, and does so in a way that comes across as real and honest, not judgemental. While you're reading the article, make sure and look at the comments because one guy makes a great point about how Christian athletes are usually reduced to one sound byte, and that makes them come across as being crazy.

-Jeff-

Breakthrough

Yesterday I had a breakthrough moment. Sometimes in youth ministry you just plug along looking for a hint of light on the horizon. Sometimes it's tough to see if you're making a difference in the lives of students at all. Especially because none of them seem very skilled in expressing gratitude. And they don't bother to try. Ever. But we don't do youth ministry for the glory, do we?

With the stress of making two house payments and looking at declining numbers in the youth (and churchwide), it's easy to make the jump to thinking that I'm not effective, or I'm doing something wrong. But yesterday I had a breakthrough. God has been calling me to fast on Wednesdays and I've put it off. Until yesterday. While my family was eating dinner I slipped into the family room to spend some time with God before church and instantly I knew that God was there with me. Within a few seconds the peace of God flooded my soul and I knew that our house was sold and things were turning around in the youth group.

Last night we had church and there were 13 people there, but more important than the number (which was average for the last 3-4 months) was the conversation we had that night. I say conversation because I didn't get to preach. Instead we talked about God and just about everyone was engaged the whole time. God was moving in that place.

Recently God has been revealing to me a strategy to win the youth of Oakville to Jesus. I am now more excited than ever that God is going to do something great here. Like I told the youth on Wednesday, sometimes God says yes, sometimes no, and sometimes He tells us to wait. I'm waiting with anticipation to see what God's going to do in the Oasis.

-Jeff-

PS: Pray for us, it's off to Youth Conference tomorrow!