God Says: Get Over It!

Have you ever written a strongly worded letter? Sitcoms lampoon this idea all the time. The passive geek is wronged and someone says, “Well, what are you going to do about it?!?” To which they respond, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it! I’m going to compose a scathing letter to shame them!” I received a strongly worded letter recently and I didn’t take it super well.

The notice was from our apartment complex. It said that they had received noise complaints about “loud music, thumping on the floor, and shouts” coming from our apartment. Now, my wife Elizabeth and I aren’t church mice, but we’re generally pretty quiet…I think. We certainly aren’t obnoxious enough to merit contacting the front office and reporting us. I was mad! Outraged even! “Why?” you ask? Because our downstairs neighbor parks like a cross-eyed maniac! And worst of all I had been contemplating calling the office on her for weeks and hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  Look at this business! It’s crazy right? Not only is she that guy who has to back in every time, but she’s not great at it. I’m not sure if she parks sideways on purpose so that people can’t park next to her Benz or if she just stinks at parking, but it must be a habit because someone has snapped off her iconic Mercedes hood ornament. And she parks right by the entrance to the building where there’s a handicapped ramp…which she backs onto. Look! She parks right on the sidewalk! I wanted to call the office and get her sent a scathing letter. In fact, that’s why I originally took these pictures. So I’d have some proof. Then I read this in Proverbs 12:16:

A fool shows his annoyance at once,
   but a prudent man overlooks an insult.

And I was done. What did I gain from showing her up except starting trouble and fueling a quarrel? It’s not like she had committed some great social injustice that I needed to fight. She just nicked my pride. Isn’t it better to just be wronged than to show yourself a fool?

            God Says: Get Over It!

Have you ever received a strongly worded letter? How did you handle it?

The Energizer

     I am a youth pastor. One of the privileges and dubious honors of youth ministry is over-nighters and lock-ins. A “more seasoned” minister than myself once told me that each lock-in takes one year of a youth pastor’s life. I’m beginning to come around to his point of view. Last weekend my students, some of my leaders, and myself played laser tag from 11:30pm to 7:00am with maybe 2 minute breaks between rounds. It was exhausting, but it was tons of fun and probably one of the best lock-ins ever.

Who do you depend on to give you more life?

     Over the course of the night we played a variety of games like Elimination, Capture the Flag, and Royal Rumble. The variety kept it fun and made the night go by super fast. One game we played was particularly interesting. It was called “Energizer.”

Here are the rules: 

1. Each player starts with 25 lives and 100 shots.

2. One player is the “Energizer.” This player shoots his own team
mates. Each time he hits a team mate they get +25 lives and +100
shots.

3. OBJECT: Stay alive, defend your energizer, and destroy the enemy’s energizer.

     I was the energizer. Let me just go ahead and say…it was stressful. “Pastor Justin I need more lives!” PJ, help I’m out of shots!” “Pastor, I need help!” It was like that scene from Bruce Almighty where a divine Jim Carey is overwhelmed by prayers and pleas for help. (Maybe I didn’t have the weight of the world on me, but at 3:00am it was certainly stressful).

      Students, one of the real blessings of life as a youth pastor is being there for students who have hit a spiritual stall or roadblock. We YP’s work very hard to cultivate real relationships with our students so that you will come to us in your times of spiritual need. People, parents and students, often say thank you after they have navigated through a difficult time and my frequent response is, “It’s what I do.” I promise I don’t say that flippantly! That is not my Schwarzenegger one liner; it’s my view on what God created me to do. So to the students who are reading this, from my church or not: Talk to your Youth Pastor. He or She wants to help you, to pray with you, and love you through the tough times of life. That said we have a second job as well.

     Colossians is a book of the Bible that is really a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Colosse. He wrote them many things about how to live and he gave them many words of encouragement. Then he finishes his letter with this statement:

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (Col. 4:12)
     You see Epaphras was the man who had founded the Colossian church. He planted it and watched it grow and his prayer wasn’t that his church would grow, but that the believers created by it would be mature and fully assured. Another important task of the Youth Pastor is to get you ready to spiritually take care of yourself. Students, there is going to come a day when your Youth Pastor can’t be your Energizer for your dwindling faith. You will reach a point of no return where you can’t fall back on that person anymore or it won’t be enough. Ask yourself if you treat your Wednesday night youth service like life support for your faith. You come in dead and expect the worship band and your pastor to rub the paddles together, yell “Clear!”, and shock you back into faith in Jesus. That only works for so long before you flatline.

     Students, I want you to know that today, I’m pledging to renew my efforts for you in prayer. I will “wrestle” for you in prayer. I will pray that you will not need to fall back on someone else to give you a spiritual booster shot so that you can keep on living, but will, “stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I hope you will renew your efforts to grow up big and strong…in Jesus.