The path to healing...

This last weekend with our high school students is something that I will never forget.  The whole thing was God-ordained. Literally.  From the planning that took place in the months beforehand, to each session, to each conversation, and to the follow up after the retreat... God had his hand in every bit of it.  I mean, He usually does... but it was so evident and it was "not normal" in the fact that it was so normal (that is - normal in the way God intended it to be).

The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Christ has come to give life - and life to the full. (John 10:10).  And that is true for each of one of us.  Hurt, pain, and scars are part of each of our lives.  And the enemy tries to win by convincing us to keep that to ourselves... to live in darkness and isolation.

This weekend, we saw teenagers living as the Church. Yeah... the one we read about in Acts and Romans, and in the way Jesus told us to live.  They chose light over darkness. They chose to live in grace over fear.  They chose to love instead of judge.  They chose to hug over rejection.

As their youth pastor, you can imagine how proud I am of their bravery and hunger for Christ.

However, the path to healing is a long one... and what happened this weekend is just the beginning.

Whether you were a part of this weekend or not, I hope that you can choose to live in grace as well.  And I hope this blog can help you.  My next few posts will be offering tools for healing.

                                                                                                                              
Healing starts with a double portion of God.  Whatever you think you need to do in your relationship with God right now, double it.  Pray like crazy, and then pray some more. Spend a crazy amount of time in the Bible.  Write or journal.  Worship.  Talk to your friends about it, to your parents, to your pastors or youth leaders.  Go above and beyond what you think you should or could do for a couple of weeks.  

Its like when you get dehydrated... you start downing water and then some.  God is the living water.  Your soul needs Him, and a lot of Him.

When I grew up practicing sports, we would always over-emphasize and over-exaggerate our fundamentals. When the pressure was on during a game, your fundamentals would naturally take over.  These things are like the fundamentals of your relationship with God.  Be ridiculous! Pretend you are a monk.

God is a healer. He gives life. He gives grace.  Take advantage... He wants you to.

More to come...