“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”
(Psalm 139:14 NLT)
- Michael Jordan was cut from his 9th grade Basketball team. If it weren’t for that, he would have never been driven to be the most successful player of his time.
- Oprah Winfrey was fired from being a newscaster because she was told that she was not good for television. Now she has her own TV network!
- Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper and was told that he had no imagination. Look at his legacy that is built on creativity!
- We may know James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader, Muffasa on the Lion King, “This is CNN”, and widely known as one of the most distinguished voices in TV and film. James has even narrated all books of the New testament for audio recording. None of us would guess that he grew up with a stuttering problem as a child and refused to speak for an extended time of his childhood. Today, any preacher would love to have a voice like his.
Failures should not set us back, but they should set us free. When we allow the world to determine our identity, we are unable to show the world exactly what God has created us to be.
I have been impressed with our Sr. High youth over the last month as we wrestled with the realities of perfection in their world. The pressures of adolescence is far greater today than ever before. It can be easy for teens to be envious of others, when feeling totally broken themselves. This is not only true for teens. Even stories in the bible talk about envy (Jacob/Esau). The reality is that everybody has a story, and even if people do no show it on the outside, they may be struggling with something very deep and dark. On Youth Sunday (May 6, 2017), we talked about these pressures. We talked about how God does not want us to avoid our dark realities, but God wants to guide us through them. God is for us, not against us. God even calls unlikely people to do Gods work to build the Kingdom (Gideon, Saul). God loves us too much, and has called us to do marvelous things in our life that continue God’s Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven.
I am convinced that God has made us perfect, despite the imperfections we think we have. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Lets celebrate!
(This post was originally posted in the May 2017 newsletter)