After 20 years, I am saying goodbye to youth ministry. I knew God was moving me from youth ministry, but after investing so much time it’s difficult to see your life in any other way. What do people do on Tuesday nights? All I have known is sitting in a dimly lit gym with lights flashing, loud thumping music, lots of laughter and talking….action every where. So many different types of young people, preppy, popular, jocks, outcasts, church kids, non-church kids; but all needing the same thing…love and significance. Isn’t that what we all search for? With teenagers, the world offers them counterfeit love, and still being “children”, they don’t have the wisdom to know the difference. Oddly enough with adults, we know the difference and still choose the counterfeit sometimes.
But this article isn’t about youth or adults ability to make good decisions; it is about change. I am a person who likes to feel secure and comfortable, but I have found lately that God wants me to have a new adventure. I know I need it because I have felt like I could jump out of my skin with boredom. I am never bored with God, but I get bored with life & the work. It is time that I move on to a new challenge. Now the only reason, I am not curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb at the thought of having my Tuesday nights free of obligation is that I am secure in the fact God is my constant companion and He never changes.
Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”
What a remarkable thought, when I live at His footstool, change could be happening all around me; good or bad, but I feel completely secure because Jesus is close and HE never ever changes!! That makes me feel good about the change that I would have normally fought, and don’t think I didn’t wrestle with the decision to leave youth ministry, I did! However knowing that HE is with me and I’m holding on to Him with all my might helps me maneuver through the journey of change. This particular season of change is harder because I don’t know what I’m changing to. It would be easier to say, “I left youth ministry to do this”. I cannot say that; I’m leaving youth ministry, period. I know He is taking me somewhere and since He is unchangeable, then I know even in the unknown direction of my life path, He is still guiding and won’t let me take the wrong direction.
Living at His footstool causes me to not just have Him with me where I go, but that I am following where HE is going and there is great security in that.
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