My Epic Journey

This morning, I had the opportunity to speak at Hyatt Middle School to their Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) group.  It was a lot of fun.  Below is an excerpt from FCA coordinator and teacher, Jonathan Juravich.

This morning we were blessed to have Ryan Smith, from Grace Point Community Church, come and speak with us!

Ryan read to us "Horton Hatches an Egg." in the story Horton the Elephant is tricked by a lazy bird to sit on an egg. He sits through rain, snow, being made fun of, captured by Hunters, sold to a circus… and the horrible list goes on. But at the end, Horton is rewarded by the egg hatching…and out comes a very unique Ele-bird! He is 100% happy.

When he was sitting on that egg he did not give up, he is loyal and dedicated to his cause: sitting on that egg. For so many of us we are nearing the end of the year (and for some, the end of middle school) and we can’t get lazy. We have a hard time putting in all of our time and instead want to just give up. But then we never get that satisfaction (or in Horton’s case the 100% happy!).

In James 1:12 we read "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial." Don’t just take it from Dr. Seuss, it is in God’s word… plain as day. If we hold true, if we persevere…at the end we are so greatly rewarded. (also check out James 1:2-4!)

Thank you for coming today Ryan and for sharing your awesome message!

A BIG thanks to Tom Houser for the message idea!!!!!

Have you ever met any one, that no matter what they are ALWAYS negative?

Over the past week I have been dealing with these type of people.  They suck the very life out of you and in many ways you wish you didn’t have to minister or deal with them.  The easiest thing is just to ignore them and pray that God would bring peace and joy in their life.

That’s the easiest route, but Jesus never chose the easiest route and He doesn’t call us to the easy path as well.  We are called to minister–each and every one of His saint–to all those we come into contact with.

So how do we minister to negative people without having the life sucked out of us–or worse yet–turning negative ourselves?

1.  Pray for peace and joy

As alluded to before, we do need to pray that God would bring peace and joy into the life of the person who is negative.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Our prayer should be for ourselves as well, that God would give us peace and joy even during this trial (James 1.2)

2.  Pray for perseverance

It is easy for us to want to give up and never talk to those people again, but once again, that is not what God wants for us.  He allows negative people in our lives to 1) point out areas of work in our life, 2) allow us to breathe life and joy into their life.  Instead of running from the problem, we need to face it head on with a spirit of humility and kindness (James 1.3-4)

3.  Pray for wisdom

We must also pray for wisdom.  It is easy for us to respond quickly and negatively as well.  That is the very thing Satan is hoping for–a schism or crevice to be set in the church among God’s people.  Praying for wisdom helps us know how God would choose for us to answer and minister.  My biggest fear is that I will say something that is going to hurt more than help.  Like animals, sometimes when we hurt our first instinct is to hurt back.  This should not be true of us as Christians.  I must seek the wisdom of God (James 1.5)

4.  Be faithful

Finally, we must be faithful.  We must stick to the task of reaching souls for Christ.  To not get sidetracked on little issues–that in light of eternity–have little to no weight.  We must instead, believe God will take care of the situation and live to that end.

My hope, through all of this, it that God grants me peace, joy, perseverance and wisdom and that in the end I will be found faithful.  May the same be true of you!