Stepping out in boldness is never comfortable, natural, or easy but the Holy Spirit gives us the power to obey God's commands and to preach the gospel! Will you please take 2 minutes right now to read this story of God's awesomeness.
"Jesse, we've got an hour before tonight's meeting, let's go!"
Jesse Ruggles and I have been investing into the teens who hang out at the P-Rod skatepark with every spare hour we get. We don't take teams with us into this park yet because, frankly, its not safe. But since we have skateboards and we know how to ride them we have become "homies" with everybody there.
Last saturday we spent a couple hours skating and connecting with everyone. It was a successful day, but as we prepared to leave we felt that God was prompting us to step out a little more in boldness. We wanted to pray for these skaters, some of whom we had just met for the first time. We started coming up with all kinds of excuses to avoid stepping out like this but the Holy Spirit gave us the boldness to silence the fear, discomfort, and excuses. We went up to every person at the skatepark and boldly said "Uhh...um...so yeah we um...we're followers of Jesus Christ and we love him and we love you and we want to pray for you guys before we leave so uhhh we're gonna' go over to that picnic table and pray for anybody who wants to come"
We got mixed responses but when the uninterested guys saw the other skaters coming over with us they decided to come too and before we knew it about 15 to 20 skaters gathered at the table for prayer. I wanted them to see Jesus as more than the glowing white guy in the pictures with the halo floating over his head. "Do you guys know what kind of people Jesus hung out with?" "Do you know what kind of neighborhood Jesus grew up in?"
As we pray with them, the heavens don't open up, crippled people don't run around, and no doves descend from the sky but something far greater happens; the number one felt need of these teens is the need for family, for belonging. As we come before the Lord together hope arises in them and they feel like they are part of something, part of a family that God is building in that community and it's awesome!
A bunch of them stuck around to ask us more questions and hear more of our personal testimonies. After we left the park one of the kids, Isaac, texted me and said "Hey do you think I could come to church with you guys on wednesday?"
It's amazing what God will do when we simply allow him to work through us. The devil is already working full time so we have to be bold to fight the good fight for the sake of our future brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus already has the victory so go ahead and step out in boldness today!
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