One Of Those Days

I'm having one of those days in student ministry where I don't have any programming responsibilities or commitments with my students today & yet I woke before the sun was up feeling a heaviness to cover them with prayer. To surrender them one by one to my Father because I feel the burden of their struggles and of being a teenager and know that there's no way I can protect them from the pain of this world. A heaviness in knowing all I can do is surrender them in prayer & strive to lead a ministry that points them to Jesus.

Days like today are an honor. Their faces fill my heart & my mind. So much to thank God for in the gift of each of them. Days like today are also hard. It's a reminder of the type of calling student ministry is and the weight of opportunity it brings to further the Kingdom.

I ended up at the gym this morning when I could no longer sleep. As soon as I climbed onto the treadmill I thought about how much I'd rather be back in bed. My God who knows every thought in my head, filled my heart in that instant with this verse: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

Student Ministry. Teenage Years. Growing nearer to Jesus. All of these wonderful and hard gifts are not a sprint. They require perseverance and prayer and surrendering. Heartache doesn't heal overnight, a close walk with the Lord doesn't happen instantly after an alter call & youth groups don't go from 50 to 500 in 3 years...and not on our own accord.

I'm thankful for the reminder on the humbling and hard days that my Father can handle it even when I get tangled up in my own sin of worry and struggle to surrender. That He's designed me for the long haul with Him and He can use a treadmill & an unexpected early Saturday morning to help remind me of His care for me and each of the students I'm so honored to know and love.