I’ve been in ministry for years.
I’ve been walking with Jesus almost as long as I’ve been walking.
I know what’s right. And I know what’s true.
But I’ll never forget the day my heart broke in half. Suddenly, I found myself dumbfounded. Speechless. Lost. I found myself in a new place where I had prior experience to handle what I was seeing, thinking, and feeling. I was uncomfortable. My sense of spiritual balance was thrown off.
Another term for that idea is “wrecked.”
Here’s what happened:
He stood on the sidewalk.
Cars raced just inches from his bare feet.
Rush hour in Mumbai.
From this little triangle of concrete in India, this five-year-old boy had one job: He aimed for that crucial 15 to 20 seconds where a car would stop at an intersection. Hopefully, they would be impressed enough to give him money.
He had a little coin jar.
Bare chested. Bare feet.
Just a pair of shorts.
And dirt all over his body.
He had a little beanie on his head. There was a string attached to a ball that he would swing out with these incredibly acrobatic swings, dips, and jumps.
He would stand on his head.
He would walk on his hands.
He would all kind of things to impress people.
He impressed me.
But what absolutely threw me down and broke my heart that day was knowing how many hours — day after day — week after week – that little boy had to stand on that corner.
And knowing that he would never enter the doors of a church.
You might be an Awana leader who has been leading in your church for decades. You might be into your second – or even third – generation of leading kids. But no matter how long you’ve been leading, I deeply believe that God still wants to shake us up. As you begin praying and planning for a new ministry season, let me encourage you:
Ask God to surprise you.
Ask Him to show you something new.
Something that might wreck you.
Something that might force you to lean on Him in a new way.
In my experience, the harder I lean on Him, the stronger I find Him to be.
