This week I had a truly humbling experience with this group, and I thank God for it. Though it is my job to teach them, these young people very often end up showing me the very heart of God.
Saturday night I was praying over my lesson and asking God to really direct me about worship. God very gently led me in a new direction, and I quickly put together a new worship service. I pulled some popular Christian music lyric videos offline and burned them to a DVD. I was unsure how the kids would react to the change, but I knew it was from God.
Sunday morning one of the students came in not feeling too well. She had a sore throat, and she was feeling very tired. I am so thankful that despite that, she came to church. Some of us adults could learn a thing or two from her. We start to feel a little puny and our instant reaction is to go back to bed. Well, I digress.
We learned about Temptation in class. I was very proud of the kids honesty, and we had some really great discussion. We talked about the importance of resisting temptation without grumbling about it. We can often have a bad attitude, even when we are doing the right thing. We do it, but we aren't happy about it. I shared two verses from Philippians 2.
"Do everything without grumbling or arguing,
so that you may become blameless and pure,
“children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”
Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky " Philippians 2:14-15
They really liked the idea that they could shine like stars in the sky, and to be honest, so do I. By doing the right thing with a good attitude, we show the World who God is. They Bible says, over and over, that we are the light of the World, but how bright is that light? We need to be positive and excited about doing the right thing, about standing apart from the World in what we say and do. That excitement helps us shine all the brighter. I don't know about you, but I would rather hang out with a happy excited person than a grumbly whiny one any old day. Okay... I digress again. It's one of those days!
After our lesson, we began worship. We had traditionally let the kids stand anywhere they wanted and pretty much do whatever they felt. This only bred disruptive and distracting behavior. I asked the kids to all stand and remain in front of their chairs. I asked them all to worship with me and remember that this was our time to focus on God not the people around us.
I was completely blown away! Instead of chaos, the kids really sang and worshiped. I could even hear them over the DVD! You have no idea what a miracle this was...a total breakthrough for this group. When it came to the more serious songs, they were raising their hands and really focusing in on God. I was overwhelmed and so grateful.
At the end of class, the young lady who was sick came over to me with a smile on her face. She explained to me that as she was worshiping God she began to feel better. The more she worshiped the better she felt. When we were done, her sore throat was healed, and she was ready to kick my butt at Frogger (video game)! HOW AWESOME! It was such a powerful reminder of what the Word of God says in Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." God was there with us, and he was doing an awesome work in each of us.
It is very often too easy to dismiss the very power of just spending some time in the presence of God. My students won't forget for awhile the awesome power of our worship and neither will I.
I love to teach young people, and I love to share in their lessons from a holy God.
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