Youth Blog

I just want to share with you about a couple of friends of mine.

Back when I was in school I had a good friend called Bob (that is actually his name :-P). We travelled to school on the same bus and were in the same year, etc, and so we built up a good friendship and would chat a lot. Now, Bob would throw at me every argument he could come up with against God and want to know what the answer was. Fortunately, this wasn’t in a way that meant he was attacking me and it was rather in a way where he wanted to know more and understand how to others saw it - he went on to study RE/Philosophy at A-level. But he wouldnt accept the answers as such, he would always come up with another reason that it was wrong. When he came along to an alpha course at my church he sat in the talk and took notes on all the things that came up that he wanted to challenge. Over the few years that this went on it felt like I had gotten nowhere. Since school has finished we have kept in touch and seen each other here and there, but obviously not to the amount that we used to.

So imagine my surprise and joy to recently discover that, because of conversations with a friend at uni and people at her church, he has now become a Christian! I was gobsmacked to find this out, and I found it hard to believe - to be honest I found I was the skeptic in this case! But when we were speaking recently he was telling me about how he got chatting about God with a woman on the train and prayed for her then and there! How impressive is that?! I don’t know about you but I would find that a daunting idea, and here he is, the guy I thought would argue his way away from it forever, doing things for God that I find scary. It’s so cool.

Another friend of mine, a girl in the year below me who I also knew from the bus to school and who, to me, barely ever seemed interested in Jesus, has also recently become a Christian.

She has a background in the Greek Orthodox church, so any discussion of religion and she would have said she was a Christian anyway. She knew I was a Christian, but we hadn’t ever really managed to get into any sort of real discussion on Christianity. A couple of years ago she also got quite ill and it still affects her, and so she tells me that she used to think “God can’t exist because why would He punish me like this?”

So it was great to have a conversation the other day and find out that she’d really had these discussions with Christians that she knows through uni, she’d attended an alpha course after Christmas, and had realised that whilst, actually we do deserve a worse punishment, God loves us and has saved us through Jesus. She now can’t help telling everyone she meets about Jesus, and is fired up to see all of her friends come to know him too. The girl I could hardly ever talk to about God cant stop talking about Jesus. The girl who, to be honest, I found it hard or embarrassing to mention my faith to is fired up to tell everyone she knows without hesitation.

Both of these are people that I used to pray a lot for whilst seeing nothing happen, and people that I thought were hardly ever likely to become Christians. And they have surpassed me, both of them.

So be inspired. You may feel that you are seeing little fruit whilst you are in school, but be Jesus to people, and pray for them continually and faithfully whilst you are in the now. Even if it seems like nothing is happening I want to encourage you to keep being salt and light in your school - dont worry or be disheartened if it seems like you’re getting nowhere, because you dont know what difference it is making, or what seeds you are sowing.

And you never know, at any time they could turn around and quickly out pace even where you are in your walk with God.

So, considering how we’ve been thinking about staying connected to God - a little illustration to hopefully encourage you.

In a way, God is like mobile phone signal. “huh?” Ok, bear with me on this

The thing about mobile phone signal is, depending on where you are your level of signal goes up or down, and the quality and ease of phone conversations does too. And depending on where you are, you can find it harder or easier to talk to God.

Think about being somewhere where you have full phone signal. There’s no interferance on the line and hearing the person on the other end can be as clear as if they were literally stood next to you. The line connects really quickly, so there’s no waiting and you know that they can hear you as well as you can hear them. You are unhindered in your conversation. If you are at somewhere like Soul Survivor, etc, it can be like you have full phone signal - speaking to God can seem so easy, like he’s right there next to you, you know He hears everything you say and it’s like you can hear Him speaking back.

What about somewhere where phone signal is moderate? You can have a conversation with someone but the line isnt quite as clear, the line may have moments where you cant hear the other person properly or they can’t hear you fully, but mainly you can have a good phone conversation. This can perhaps be like our every day life at church or youth meetings - we can have full on conversations with God, even if it’s not as intense as at those festivals.

Then there’s low phone signal where conversations can feel really tough. Maybe there are times at school or work or wherever when it’s hard to even bother praying - it works, but it’s harder to do.

But even if you have no signal, you should be able to phone through to emergency services. And how true is that with God? Even in the most dire of circumstances, if you feel you are in the hardest place to talk to God, that connection is still present. You can get in touch with Him no matter where or when - it doesnt matter if it doesnt sound like the clearest connection, or it isnt in the easiest place, you can always get in touch with God. Always. With mobile phones there are places that you do fully lose signal (tunnels, etc) but thats the difference with God. There’s nowhere you lose touch with Him.

So I guess the final thing to say is, how much are you using your mobile phone to God? If we know that signal is always available to us, although how clear it is can vary, then how much are we speaking to Him? Signal is one thing but for a phone conversation to happen, we have to actually have the connection made and the phone to our ear - we have to be purposefully talking.

Cause here’s one last thought - He gives you unlimited minutes

So we all know about Sam, don’t we? He had an accident and it could have gone worse or better but thankfully he’s on the mend and he’ll be fine. Lately another of my friends has been in hospital, she’s ill too.Which makes me think… ‘If you were to die today, have you achieved all you want? Are you truly happy with what you’re doing?’ God wants us to be happy. He loves us enough to know each one of us inside out - all we do and all we say is seen before we act, by the one and only God. So surely we should do our hardest to be happy within ourselves?

God loves each one of us. He created us with values and norms and morals…
but most of all he created us with an ability to think and a conscience…

Oohhhh we love the conscience! It has this amazing ability to make us feel guilty, and in a strange way it is an odd way of God telling us we’ve done wrong, so fix it and the feeling will go away. (I think anyway.)
But mostly… God wants us to be happy. Happy within ourselves. Happy within our relationships. Happy with Him. But right now a lot of us are lost. I know I find it hard to forgive and forget, especially when I’ve done wrong and I have to accept it and apologise. (Which is most of the time… [rebel!])

Now find a bible quote… wait… wait… searching… found one!
Psalm 139 : 10.
It goes… ‘Even there you would guide me, With your right hand you would hold me.’

So… you’re reading that and thinking… no relevance. But there is! Haha! Basically I’m trying to say that God’s all around us and things are happening for reasons beyond our understanding, until the end when it will all fit into place. So by reading this it’s saying that God’s always there for us. It’s ok to be angry and scared with guilt but it’s also ok to forgive, although we find it hard. God will be with us all the way through.  

And it’s not meant to be easy, but it gets easier, and with God behind you watching you… surely its all you need? The forgiveness is for a reason and the in-between,
oh the in-between… most awkward, moodiest stage of all (I blame hormones).

I mean are you truly happy with your relationship with God? With other people?
And if you’re thinking ‘no’… what are YOU going to do about it? And that… is my challenge to you.

Emily