Attitude of Gratitude: All You Need is Love

There is nothing like God pulling you out of bed on a Sunday morning for church. I know I have said this before, but it seems to be happening to me a lot lately. This Sunday, He was a little late, so I went downstairs to make coffee for Jay and bring up cereal and the couple of leftover pancakes from yesterday. We flipped on the laptop and watched Andy Stanley online. What did people do when they were lazy and before church had live sermons online? I am actually still in my PJs while I am writing this. I love Sundays! He is on the 7th installment of an 8 part series on Christian. What it means to be Christian. Buddy Hoffman at Grace has a similar attitude as Andy, and I first heard the phrase from him. "Strive to be more than a Christian, strive to be a follower of Christ". Of course, Buddy tells people he is a follower of Christ, but it was interesting to hear an entire sermon on why we should do this. The lesson today was on loopholes. Andy claimed that Christians are better at loopholes than any other religion on Earth. That was a pretty bold statement. But, when he started giving examples of how Christians try to rationalize their actions and beliefs it started to make sense.

Then, as it does on most of the Sundays that God un-willingly pulls me out of bed, I got that hit in the gut with the realization that I have been doing this with a pretty major life decision all week. I feel like God has been calling me to volunteer with the middle school girls at North Point. I can't remember if I had posted about that before, so if this is a repeat...bare with me! I truly found God when I was in middle school, due in huge part to my middle school leader LeeAnn. On another Sunday that my butt was forced into a chair on Sunday Andy was talking about how they are going to add a service in the fall and would need close to 1000 additional volunteers to make this happen. One of the biggest needs was in middle school, and there was another conviction I wouldn't have received unless God woke me up that morning. I have gone through the interviews, applications, background checks, and met with the girls coordinator to get started. We sat down and had a long conversation about what it means to be a follower of Christ, your beliefs on different hot button issues that come up in the middle school world, etc. I shared my story and was asked what seemed like a very small question at the time, but has sparked alot of self-doubt since then. Have you been baptized? Well, the answer is no. It's not that I don't want to be, it just never came up with all of our moves as kids and bouncing around churches like we did across the country. In order to serve at North Point you really need to be baptized. Kids in the middle school have their own baptisms in their own wing of the church. In order to help these kids find a life in Christ, it's important that you can share this story with them. I completely understand. But, I had all of this doubt. Maybe I'm not ready, maybe this is God's way of showing me that this isn't what he wanted from me. This isn't where He wanted me to serve. I can't be a member of this church, I just started going there. Clearly, God has other plans for me, because this is ludicrous. This is all too fast.

But then, He wakes me up again for another convicting service. Loopholes. I was using baptism as a loophole to not serve Christ in the manner in which He has intended for my life. What does love require of me? God is requiring me to LOVE these kids the same way I was shown LOVE at their age. It's a huge commitment. It's 3 years, following these girls through their middle school career. It's every Sunday night, it's several camps a year, it's being there when life hits these girls. But, God gave me someone who did those things for me. How can I use a loophole to deprive those girls of the same thing?

I am thankful God woke me up out of bed this morning. But, I am going to need a lot of prayer throughout this experience. Without sounding too old, kids these days are faced with so much more than we were even 15 years ago. They are surrounded by more tragedy, divorce, and forced to make much more adult decisions than we even knew existed. They need strong women in their lives. They need women who can show them a safe way through their teenage years to help them make good decisions. Pray for the leaders who will impact their lives. I thank God for giving me someone who did this for me, pray that God leads the men and women who will be guiding our next generation into adulthood. I'm grateful God woke me up this morning to put this across my path, and grateful God gave me a strong network of friends and family to help me live out His plans for my life.