Galatians 5:6

As New Staff Training winds down and we begin the transition to the All-Staff Conference, I want to take a moment and just say “Wow” and tell you what an incredible God we serve and what an incredible ministry that He is using to further His Kingdom!

An explanation: New Staff Training is a two week (well 8 days this year) conference in which all the new staff nationally and internationally meet and are poured into and trained in the basics of Young Life. We have had some amazing men and women share their stories with us and tonight as we listened to our president Denny speak I realized what a rich, beautiful tradition the ministry of Young Life has. The temptation with this could be to claim this as our identity and ride on the coattails of those that have gone before us…but over and over again this week we got to see men and women who claim their identity, not in Young life but instead only in that they are a beloved of Christ. They “resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) and it is a beautiful and convicting thing to behold. Jim Rayburn, founder of Young Life, put it so perfectly when he said, “Jesus is not just what we’re about; He is ALL we’re about.”

One of the biggest things that the Lord has laid on my heart over and over again this week is the idea of "trust" and what that looks like in its purest form. I think I am incredibly guilty of trusting God as a means to an end, instead of simply resting in the arms of my Savior and allowing His love and peace to fill and lead me. In one of our seminary classes we talked about how Spiritual Disciplines are not the ways by which we make our faith and ministries work, instead they are the natural responses to a love so overwhelming that the worship and prayer and study just gush out of you without you being able to contain it! What a joy to live this way! Not to count your quiet times, or have a designated amount of time in the Word but instead to be so captivated by Jesus that we cannot help needing our daily dose or more of prayer, study, etc. Galatians 5:6 says “The only thing that counts is trust expressing itself through love”, and I want to claim this Truth in my own life.

As we’re given time to reflect on our call first to Christ and then to ministry I am again humbled by how trustworthy the Lord is and yet how untrusting my human heart is. I have been officially fundraising for three and a half months now and have one hundred percent of my start-up costs and about twenty five percent of my monthly budget raised…this is huge and means that God has showed up in some pretty incredible ways, through the hearts of many of you for this mission!

Before I can deploy (officially move down there) I have to have one hundred percent of my monthly budget pledged, which leaves me with about $3,000/month left. Before these past couple of days it was my tendency to approach this from a purely strategic viewpoint, for example find 30 people who can give $100/month, 15 people to give $200/month, 6 people who can give $500/month or some combination thereof. This sounds reasonable right, a very smart and resourceful way of thinking. Well I am here to tell you that the Lord cares neither for intelligence nor resourcefulness in this journey of fundraising. He is calling me to complete and utter abandonment of my own strength, pride and ideas and to have a complete trust in His perfect timing and way!

So tonight my plea is simple, please join me in setting this ministry before the very throne of God and trusting Him in a way that believes in big things. Prayer is a form of battle and I am asking you all to join me in it as we fight to trust God for this last $3,000/month. I have seen what prayer can do and I am so excited to see what the Lord does as we all battle and take up arms for the chance to have these broken and unloved kids to know the perfect love of Jesus! “That’s not just what we’re about, that’s ALL we’re about”.

Please shoot me an email (sarah.stewart89@gmail.com) and let me know how I can be praying for each of you! And if you are reading this and want to get involved as a part of my financial team, send me an email and we can find a time to talk about it!!

To end with, a verse my mom loves to share with me. “I thank my God every time I remember you!” Philippians 1:3. I do thank Him for each of you and the special part you have in building His kingdom!

The Passing of a Saint and the Start of a New Year

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

I want to begin this by thanking you all for the incredible love and support that you have covered my family with these past couple of months. My sweet grandmother left us for the strong arms of Jesus the last day of 2011 and, as my dad and his brother and sister put it, “had the best New Years ever”. Though the past couple months have been a struggle, I am reminded of the promise and blessing we have in our Lord who is always and forever faithful. As David Beck, the pastor for her funeral, looked through her bible he uncovered the faith of this beautiful woman who knew that her place would be with Jesus forever, and she was ready!

One thing I will never forget is the morning we went to view my grandmother’s body, as the rest of it would be a closed casket. I can remember standing between Ben and Emily and really not wanting to go up there. As we came up to say our goodbyes to this woman who left us a legacy of laughs, basketball competitions and loving her family, my whole attitude changed…you see…that was not my grandmother in that casket! When we face death, I think we are so emotional that we forget the facts of our faith and simply try to cling desperately to any hope or comfort we can. That morning I can remember turning to Ben and saying, “oh yea…that’s not her is it?” it was like a light bulb clicked. My grandmother loved her Lord, our Lord, and because of God’s redemptive work, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Granny was with Him that very day in Paradise. Amen.

In our own understanding, death does not seem to make any sense. Why would a God who is so good and loves us so much allow something that causes such pain? In that moment I am realizing how small my faith is. How often do I cling with a vise-like grip to the shadow of living that this world consists of? The bible tells us that when our earthly lives are over, and we trust Jesus as our Lord, we get to come into His kingdom…and how much sweeter and more wonderful must be the Kingdom of God than the Kingdom of this earth? Lord give me a heart not to fear it, but to long for it!

So coming into a New Year I want to claim this verse for myself and those of you that wish to join me in it. My own understanding has failed and the Lord has shown me Grace and Love when those were the only things that made sense. There is much to be done in 2012, it is a year of mission and hope and great expectations! As we start the journey this year will take us on, I want profess my lack of understanding and claim the Truth that as we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways, He will provide the knowledge we lack and the Light for our path!