While I've been home...

Before we all left for our Christmas break, Dr. Matt Olson (The President of Northland International University) told us to "Go home, get rested up, and serve." Immediately I had many ideas of what I could do to serve. There is a girl in youth group that is not extremely "popular". I came home honestly excited about what I was planning on doing, because for once in my life I was doing something fully for the glorification of Christ alone. I finally decided on taking the girl to eat at her favorite restaurant, and then to the mall to shop. When I was able to get in contact with the girl I was going to take, I was almost as excited as she was. When the day finally came to take her, my family picked her up at 11:30 am, and headed over to the restaurant for lunch. My dad, mom, brother, and uncle sat separate from my friend and I so we could "talk". It was a wonderful time just to fellowship and to talk to her about the importance of having consistent devotions. Since she was a semi-new Christian, she did not "know how to do devotions". I told her that there wasn't a certain way that you had to do ones devotions. As long as you are in the Word of God on a regular basis, and are getting the "spiritual food" that a Christian needs to survive in the world around us; it didn't matter if she did it out of a bible, a study book and bible, etc. etc.
While we were talking, our food came, and there was a lull in the conversation from spiritual things as we set our minds on the delicious food that had been set before us. After we had ordered desert, I managed to turn the conversation from "The Jonas Brothers" to "Prayer" and "Devotions" again. Finally after almost a full hour of stressing the importance of spiritual maturing, and a daily walk with Christ, I think she finally started to get what I was trying to say.
The "date" was a success and I walked away from dropping her off at her house feeling more satisfied than I ever had before. A couple Wednesdays ago, we had a guest speaker in youth group on Wednesday evening. They called him "Mr. D". Afterwards, I walked up to him, and encouraged the girl that I had taken out to speak with him. I started out by introducing ourselves as we had not gotten to meet him before youth meeting. He again stressed how important consistent devotions were. He put it like this. G.R.O.W. To grow spiritually, you need to follow these steps.
G - Go to Church
R - Read Your Bible and Pray
O - Obey
W - Witness to Others the Good News of Jesus Christ
I had never heard it put quite like that...but I have also not forgotten it.
Since then, I have really sought out ways to serve others. Whether it be just to simply spend time with them when I would really like to be doing something else, or taking the initiative to reach out and "Love the unlovable".
Looking back at last semester, God had some really hard lessons for me to learn, and he also pryed my fingers off of some very important things that I held onto in this life. Now that my break is coming to a close, I have a feeling that God will again teach me a very important lesson...however, this time, I have a gut feeling that it will hit closer to home. Whatever lesson that God wants to teach me, I know that "From the Beginning of Time" He has a plan for me. Not just a "plan" but a Perfect Plan that will end up molding me more and more into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. It will hurt...all lessons do, but as long as I have my faith, my family, and my friends (in that order), there is nothing that I can't handle.