Student Ministry News!

This week I shared with the teens a bit about my testimony which, when it comes down to it, is not very different from anyone else. We have all come from somewhere, survived some circumstances and arrived somewhere else.

What I have been learning over the past few years is that how well we ‘survive’ our circumstances is really a matter of perspective. We can continue to look at what we’re facing from the places where we have been wounded before – headed to the same places where we have camped out with our familiar fears and inhibitions - or we can chose to see things from a heavenly perspective.

Most of my life, I coasted by with my “make-it-through-the-day” plan. I didn’t necessarily know how I was going to get where I wanted to go, or even where it was I really wanted to go. The times I felt abandoned or fearful, I wasn’t seeing where God was in the situation. I wasn’t able to see that the things I felt I was only surviving were accumulating into quite a valuable collection of experiences.  I certainly didn't know that one day I’d be ministering to others out of these experiences.

In the past few years, I’ve started asking God where He was in those times when I was struggling and confused; and my conversations with God, because of that one question, have been transforming – healing even. Even more so, having learned I can ask His perspective even in the midst of my trials has caused there to be an increase of peace, direction, joy, and trust in my life.

In our small groups, students were encouraged to step into listening prayer and ask the same questions: to look back on a difficult time (or maybe a current circumstance) and ask God where He was (or is), what it was He thinks of what happened there and how He wants to use that situation.

Students were also posed with a few other questions to explore:
How do you acquire a ‘new’ perspective?
Will you choose to see things differently?
How would you describe your journey so far? Do you think God would describe it the same way?
Have there been times you arrived somewhere you didn’t expect to go, or maybe gotten somewhere you hoped you would, but in a way you couldn’t have expected? Coincidence or God?
Where do you hope to go from here?

These are good questions for our students to ponder during the week.  

-Rebecca Dlubac