I just wanted to reiterate the purpose of this blog.  The other day at lunch  one of my friends asked what a blog was.  Well, it’s anything you want it to be.  Some people use it to help get business for a company, so use it to rant about people they don’t like, some use it to connect to others about sports or cooking, etc.

So why do *I* blog?  I blog lessons that I am learning.  I blog because I want people to know what’s going on in my life.  I blog because I have to sort out all the things that I am learning, and share them with people.  I blog because I like to talk.  I blog because I like to teach.  I blog because I feel like God wants me to share particular things with people.  I blog to get things off my chest.  I blog because I am vulnerable.  I blog because I want people to share in my imperfections.  I blog because I love to.

I’ve been contemplating one thing in particular that has taken over my thoughts the last month…Since I am a legit youth minister now (still weird to say), I have been thinking about the example I want my youth to follow.  When I listen to music, or watch a television show, or speak, I think to myself, “Is this the way I want my youth to behave?”  If not, then I reform it.  It’s quite interesting to me, and I’m realizing that I still don’t have all my cookies in the jar (I think I just made that analogy up).  I’ve been thinking about the people I hang out with, and all sorts of stuff.  I think I’m going to start a fast from secular music soon, just to see the way it impacts me (not because I think it’s sinful…and this is kind of an aside).

I don’t think that I am a terrible person by the world’s standards, and I think that God would even say that I’m a young woman after His heart.  However, there is still sin in my life, and although there always will be, I don’t want to cause anybody else to stumble…ESPECIALLY my youth.  They are the most important people in my life, and my God-given purpose is to train them up in righteousness.  So there are things in my life that I’m going to have to get rid of in order to train them up.  This is going to be hard for me because I’m realizing that I’m still very much impacted by the “secular world.”

Besides my youth, I know a LOT of people who don’t know Christ… a LOT.  And I know a lot of people who have been trapped by legalism, telling them that they have to do certain things in order to be a Christian, and live the most perfect life or they’re not “Christlike”.  If you believe this, please go read Romans.  We are freed from the grips of sin and the grips of legalism.  However, if we want to lead people to Christ, we should probably try our hardest to live like Him, or our testimony could wither and our ministry hindered.  So even things that I don’t see as a “big deal”, I want to try to correct in my life, because someone else probably does see them as a big deal.  And if I want to reach them, maybe I should get rid of this.

I ask that anybody who is reading this pray for me.  I really want to impact the next generation, that is my specific calling.  So I’m going to really have to reform some things in my life.

This whole thing makes me think of 2 passages:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.” James 3:1

“But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 1For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?  So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”  1 Corinthians 8:7-13

Sorry for the randomness, guys.  This is my heart today.