For the past few weeks I have been doing a sermon series called "Going all In" and our group has talked about what it means to be all in for God and what that looks like. Before our service started I was talking with one of our students and she was telling me about things that she had heard about someone who use to attend our group and now is in college. This person she was telling me about was such a leader and had a passion for growing in Christ. I would have never thought that this person would be doing the things he or she is doing. She shared with me how college has brought her friend down and how she never really saw this coming. Remember this is right before I am getting ready to go up and preach and the topic that night was entitled "Not everyone will go all in!" I can't believe what I am hearing and now I have to get up and talk about how there will be some people who follow and some people who don't and some who just pretend. I have to say I was heart broken. I had this overwhelming since of fear for my seniors who graduate this year and those who have gradated in the past. I started thinking about the culture that college brings and the different relationships people will make. I have seen so many people go to college and walk away from their faith. So many people who have never had that type of freedom and who can't handle the temptations that college brings. The sad part is I have seen so many college students say, "I have the rest of my life to live for God just give me these four years!" After that statement is made I have yet to see them return to their faith they loved so much during High School. I was driving home after Edge and still feeling all the emotions from the night I began to pour out my heart to God. I questioned if the people I minister to are real or just pretending. I questioned whether my seniors could really handle college or would I be having this same conversation a year from now about someone else. Then a sense of peace came over me and a thought stayed in the for front of my mind. I can't live their lives...
No matter what I do people will make their own choices about God, life, college and faith. I can give hundred's of examples of where I have messed up even in college but they will have to learn that for themselves. We seem to be a people that has to fall before we can rise. I want so badly to protect my students from falling but I can't, that is up to them. I can't live their lives but I can continue to point to the one who brings life. I just hope Christians take Jesus to college with them. I hope they don't see youth group as a child like thing, but a foundation and starting point with Jesus for the rest of their lives. I know students are thirsty for life but I hope they know that Jesus is the well that won't run dry.
I pray that God would bring satisfaction to those lives I can't live!!
I think that it is hard to invest so much time in a person to just see them begin to throw it all away. I wrote down this quote many years ago that popped in my head when I read your post. It says:
ReplyDelete"Passionate investment leaves us vunerable to loss, and sometimes, no matter how clever we are, we must lose"
We all get invested in relationships but if we can keep our mind and heart on God, it just may be our faith that brings our personal investments back home to God.
I believe if the passion for God was there once, it will return again. Hopefully it's not something tragic that causes the return.
Hey man!
ReplyDeleteHaven't we all had our time as pretenders and flakes. I think most of the disciples where flakes who either talked big or just didn't get it. That didn't stop Jesus from investing in those guys, even the one that got away.
And maybe this is too much of a generalization but sometimes I think that those of use in church culture spend a lot of time sheltering people from the world - sometimes to the point of being out of the world - and when they see it they don't know what to do. It was Jesus's prayer not that his disciples be taken out of the world and that they would be protected from the evil one. I don't know how the sermon went but it might not be a bad idea to let your students know that that is your prayer for them as well.