Great are you, Lord.
When I was a freshman in high school my heart began to break for the next generation. An overwhelming sensation rushed over me as I felt as though there was no hope left for my future children. The world was beginning to crumble around me - or so it felt like it.
My heart yearned for every child to know just how great their Heavenly Father was. It was also that weekend, in the Kalahari Conference Center that I felt the Lord telling me that I was supposed to do ministry for the rest of my life and that I was supposed to work with students.
I didn't know what that meant, I thought I was going to be a veternarian. I mean, that's all I have ever wanted. That was my goal, my dream. My world was flipped upside down.
Then I started realizing why. Why I was called to spend my life loving students - because I don't want a single middle or high school student to enter college without hearing the greatest love story of all time.
A middle schooler is so much brighter than one imagines and I don't think they are given enough credit. A high school student can change the lives of his/her friends, teachers, even families - I've seen it.
And guess what?
The more I began to grow in my faith, the more I began to dive deeper into the word of God, the more I realized that there were other people just like me! They were my age and their hearts yearned for the same thing that mine did - to watch lost souls go from death to life.
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend "Leader Weekend" in Cincinnati Ohio. I, along with 1,400 other people, including everyone from seniors in high school to an 80-year-old man who was the 17th person ever to be hired on Young Life staff, got the chance to worship our Father together.
Great are you, Lord.
There is no greater feeling that waking up at 8am to make it to the first session of the day, running in a little bit late because coffee and getting to stand among 1400 people you age, singing at the top of their lungs, "it's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, pour out our praise, to you only Lord."
That song - "Great are you, Lord."
Oh how great you are. Great are you for showing me that there is hope in the next generation. There is hope that one day a leader will walk into my freshman son or daughter's life and touch them the same way I was once touched. There is hope that the generation underneath me will have the same heart that I do and that the trend with just keep going.
"As a prisonor for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have recieved.Be completely humble and gentle; be completely humble and gentle, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." - Ephesians 4:1-6
