GIve Me Faith...

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go away with a few of my youth workers to do some "dreaming", visioning, and planning for our youth ministry.  The location was Stone Harbor, NJ, probably tied for my most favorite place to be right alongside of the country of Honduras.  We started the weekend sharing personally where God had been working in our lives over the past year, as well as sharing the places where we really needed God to be working.  We did the same for our youth ministry that night, as we sat around the fireplace just "remembering" places where God had shown up in the lives of our students.

The weekend was a reminder that we are up against some challenges when it comes to not just youth ministry, but our personal lives as well.  Sunday morning, we visited a church that my family and I attend when we are on vacation in the summer.  It could not have been a more fitting morning.  The minute we walked in, we could feel God's presence.  As we worshipped together, I was reminded just how big and great God's love really is.  Then the Pastor got up and talked about "Bold Prayer Moves."  While I wish I could remember everything he said, I just know that God was tugging on my heart.  At the end of the service, he invited us to write on a piece of paper what mountain we needed God to move in our life and bring that forward.

Wow...I could think of a lot of mountains.  I want God to move the mountain of doubt and fear that creeps in when I think I can't wait one more day in this process of adoption.  I want God to move the mountain cancer for one of my best friends who is only 33 taking care of his wife in stage 4 of cancer.  I want God to move the mountains that stand in the way of our students in our youth ministry who haven't given their entire lives to God yet.  I want God to move a lot of mountains.

As I brought my "mountain" to the front of the church last Sunday, I was overwhelmed by God's grace and presence in the midst of my own journey.  While he has not completely moved my mountain, he continues to chip away, asking me to trust him, to trust the plan, and most of all, trust that he will not leave us in the midst of some really difficult circumstances.  The worship leader sang a song I had never heard and it struck to the depths of my soul.  Even as I searched for it this morning and listened to it again, tears started to flow.  I encourage you to listen to it.

Part of the lyrics say, "I may be weak, your spirit strong in me.  My flesh may fail, my God you never will."  I don't always understand what God is doing, but I know he is strong when we are at our weakest.  He is a God of the impossible.  He is a God who loves us and a God who can and will move mountains.

As we left that day, the worship team led us in Hillsong's "All Things Are Possible."  Again, tears were brought to my eyes from the pure realization that we serve a God who can and will do anything.  It might not be in the form we expect it, but God is on the move, moving mountains every day.  May we "pray boldly."