YouthFire Blog

I recently read through Luke 17:11-19. It’s about 10 lepers who are healed by Jesus, but only one returns to thank him. Since it is Thanksgiving, I thought I would reflect on this story.

So, nine of the former lepers take Jesus for granted and don’t go back to thank him. How often do we take things for granted? How often are we thankful for the little things in life…like elbows, a beating heart, and a working toilet?

Fred Craddock, a minister, said, “It is often the outsider, the stranger, the visitor who sees and appreciates and responds for countless gifts that we have come to take for granted. The visitor in my home talks with and enjoys the children I hardly noticed between coming home and reading the evening paper. The visitor thanks my wife for the meal I have eaten 1,000 times in silence. It is so often the stranger who notices and expresses appreciation for what familiarity has blinded us to. This is the truth that hurts. But it is also truth that can heal. He (Jesus) is not just someone who shows us up for the ingrates we are. He is one sent by God to give us new eyes and ears. And hearts.”

Anyway, I love Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite holidays. I love to be around my family at that time and have some good food. I’m really thankful for that. However, we shouldn’t restrict our thankfulness to Thanksgiving day. Don’t take things for granted in your life. Thank God and others for what they do for you. Thank God for your elbow and your beating heart, for providing food for you, and for sending Jesus to shed His blood for you. Thank your parents for taking care of you. Thank your friends for being there for you when you need them. We have so much to be thankful for from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep.

Be thankful…always. If you want to do some further reading, check out Psalm 16, Psalm 103:2, James 1:17, and Philippians 4:10-13.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, last week I wrote about confession. I must confess that my relationship with God lately has been…bad. I just haven’t spent the time with Him that I should. It’s been a few weeks since I cracked open my Bible, and I haven’t really put prayer at the top of my priority list. I keep making all kinds of excuses about how I’m too busy or too tired or I’m not in the mood.

As a result, I’ve been feeling distant from God. I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing some things that are against my better judgment. Because I’ve been distant from God, I’ve been following the desires of my own heart rather than what God desires for me. Now I’m left feeling guilty and ashamed. If I had been spending time with God, listening to God, I don’t think some of these sins would have happened.

I urge you all to go spend some time with God. Making God priority and spending time with Him is something I don’t regret, but sinning is something I do regret. I’d rather not have regrets…

…so I’m off to spend some much needed time with God.

I’ve been meaning to blog on here since about Friday, but I’ve just been busy or not in the mood or distracted or whatever. In fact, I don’t even remember what I was going to blog about. Then something came up today that I deemed more “blogworthy.”

Tonight I was at my campus ministry meeting, and the praise band was leading worship. The songs were great and seriously, the praise band was probably the best that I had ever heard. I was standing and singing…and…that’s just it…I was just singing. I was not worshiping. I felt like there was some sort of barrier between me and God.

I left the room, found a secluded spot, and just spilled my sins to God. I had done some pretty bad things during the day, and I’d been doing some pretty stupid things with my life in general. I just needed to confess that and get it out to God.

I went back to the group to listen to the lesson. Guess what the minister was talking about? Confession. There are just things in our lives that keep us from having a healthy relationship with God, and those things also prevent us from having honest relationships with other people. Remember how I wrote about the church last week and how we thought the church should be about openness, honesty, and vulnerability? Sin is just one of those things that we need to get out in order for us to be true to God and true to those in the church.

There are things we can do about the sin and guilt in our lives. First of all, we can confess it to God through prayer. Not only should we confess our sins, we should confess them right after they happen. I know sometimes we wait until right before Communion to “get ourselves right” with God or that we wait until our special “prayer time,” but I really don’t think we should wait that long. That sin can affect a relationship with God until the time of confession.

Next, writing about sin and temptations is good. Talk about how it made you feel, how you should respond next time, that sort of thing. Keep it private and really let your feelings out. You can burn the paper later if it makes you feel better. Writing about things just helps to sort stuff out. Later on, if you happen to save your journal, you can look back to see how you’ve overcome something or how you’ve grown or how much you still need to learn.

Finally, it’s good to talk to others about what’s going on in our lives. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” Also, in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 it says, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.” It’s good to have someone around to share the load.

Confess.