A Heavy Heart

I have a heavy heart. I have been reminded so many times this past week that things are not always as they appear. It is so easy for people to appear one way in one setting and then an entirely different way in another.

As a pastor I desire so much for my students to love God more than anything else in their lives. To love Him to the point of forsaking the temptations to live contrary to what they know is right and honoring to their God.

It is so easy for students to live the life God wants of them to live, when around their youth group and church community, and yet when they leave that setting, live an entirely different way. Chap Clark references this kind of living as the "world beneath", and that most teenagers live in these two diffenent worlds. I want to say, it doesn't have to be that way.

God never intended for us to live two separate lives. As a pastor I want to see this change. It is my greatest concern and prayer for the students I shepherd. In reading this morning in Philippians I read how Paul shared a similiar concern. His desire for the church in Philippi is my prayer for my students.....

"...become blamesless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life - in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing." Philippians 2:15-16

May we all live in such a manner that the world would praise our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).