Even For Just One

I'm a youth leader. I've talked about that on here before. I love being a youth leader. The teenagers I work with are worth every moment of blood, sweat and tears (lots of tears) that my fellow leaders and I pour into them. God overflows us with joy, love and encouragement and we try to pour those things back into the kids. As rewarding as it is, it's not always easy.

In my time of working with teenagers I've seen lots of different situations with lots of different outcomes. I've seen kids who have wholeheartedly dedicated their lives to the Lord. Those who have gone on to live their adult lives as productive members of society. Some of them have married, had children, gotten good jobs. Some have even turned around and poured their own time, energy and money back into the ministries that drew them closer to the Lord in the first place. Those kids are such a blessing. Youth leaders can look at them and thank God for the encouragement that they get by seeing how those kids have turned out.

Then there's the other side of the spectrum. The kids who have completely walked away from the Lord, from their family and from everyone who ever tried to help them. These are the kids that routinely break your heart. You keep holding out a hand, wanting to help them back onto the right road and they keep slapping it away. So you pray and pray and pray because all you can do is leave them in the Lord's hands.

There are in between situations. The kids who start out strong and then slowly drift away, leaving you shaking your head and wondering if there was something you could've said or done differently to change their trajectory. Or the ones who are such a mess all through those years you were in their life and you spent that time shaking your head wondering where on earth they were going to end up and sometimes they end up on the right path, other times it's years later and you still don't know what's going to happen.

Our human perspective is so short sighted. When a kid seems to be doing well we rejoice, but we have no idea what's happening under the surface, in their hearts. We see a kid going the wrong way and we cry out to God, 'Lord, why aren't you stopping them? Why aren't you intervening?' but what we don't realize is that kid is going to be a youth pastor some day and reach hundreds, maybe thousands of kids.

Thinking about the different kids makes me think of Jesus going to the cross and looking out over the crowd. People were jeering at Him, mocking Him as He was taking on, not just their sins, but the sins of the world. Your sins. My sins. He was taking on the sins of each of those kids I talked about. He went to the cross knowing who would walk away, knowing who would eventually accept Him and knowing all the pain that He would survive because of each of our decisions.

The pain that we experience with the decisions of our youth kids is nothing compared to what Christ experienced when He took on our sins on the cross. He endured it all knowing there were many who would never accept His sacrifice. Even if it was just one person who accepted His free gift of salvation He would've still gone to the cross to be crucified and rise again three days later. He would still have gone through that pain for just one person!

That’s the example we need to remember every time someone hurts us. Every time one kid walks away and breaks our hearts again, every time you're tempted to give up remember that even if you only reach one person it's worth it. God doesn't tell us who's life we're going to touch or who's life we'll make a difference in. He hasn't told me which kids to pour into, He just tells me to be there for the teens He puts in my life and leave everything else, including my heartache, to Him.