The Prodigy

To all of you guys who have been following my blog, I know that October was a dry month when it came to my blog. It for sure wasn't when it came to the weather here. I think there was more days with rain then days of sun. I would just like to let all of you know that I am still alive and well. But I am back! At least for this post. I never realized that a human being could put so many things in such a small amount of hours in the day. But I am going to fill you guys in now on what is happening up here in Rockford.

To begin with, I want to praise God for everything he has blessed me with in the last couple months. In the month of October I was blessed with a job. Granted, it is only delivering pizzas, but I never realized I could love doing that so much. The time I get in my office, aka my car, while taking a delivery is like my alone time. It is my time to sing to worship music, and the amount of prayer time I get is literally such a blessing. I love delivering. Also, my coworkers are pretty legit. Just don't let them in on my secret. Ever time I work with them I slip more and more Jesus into their lives. They are all aware of the fact that I am an intern at a church, but none of them know that my goal is for them to come to church with me before the school year is up. I feel like God put me in this job for that reason, to practice reaching the lost in every opportunity and I am beyond thankful that I'm allowed to do that at Marcos.

Lets talk about my love for the Bible real quick. I never knew that I could love reading. Growing up, I literally read the Bible only to fall asleep. Lets be honest, if you don't know why you are reading something, or the context of what you are reading, or you're just doing it to get that spiritual check mark for the day, you're never going to enjoy reading the Bible. That was my problem, I was reading the Bible out of obligation and not out of passion. The passion is what I have gained by being part of this program. While yes, its an obligation in the program to study scripture, and bible is thrown at us every day in class, the way they do it and the way we learn is exceptional. Theres nothing I want to do more after a day of learning from our teachers and director about the Bible than to crack open the Bible when I get home and dive deeper into it and see what it all means to me. I saw this all the time now, when you see who's writing the book, and who's receiving the letters and the sermons, you can just put yourself in the shoes of the people receiving the words and you understand it so much better. That is something that this program has taught me that I will hang onto forever.

Lets talk about my track for a little bit. I love youth. Its not always glamorous or fun, but in the grand scheme of things, youth is such a blessing to be a part of. I have always been apart of the youth group in Olney, helping and serving when they needed me, but I didn't realize how big and how much work it was going to be in the ministry here. Truly, though, I have learned what it means to do everything without grumbling and complaining. By no means am I perfect at it. By no means do I complete everything without arguing. But I have learned how to overcome my feelings of how stupid I may think something is or how pointless it is and trust in faith that God can use every single thing we do for His glory. Also, working under the pastors I work under, it has shown my what it is like to have a passion like these two have for the young adults of this world. They are so intentional to put time and invest in these kids lives, and to make every service something unique and to change everything with the fast pace, changing lives of these kids. There is something about this youth ministry that has Gods hand written all over it.

Now, I know there are some of you who wonder what the meaning of my title is for. I am so glad that you asked! This last week has been so busy. As a CFLC student, each of us invested over 80 hours in 5 days for a little something called Thrive conference. Thrive is an annual conference that our church puts on for the ages of 14-27. In this church, we really believe in the young people of this church. There were over 1200 students, along with the leaders that attended the conference. I really struggled this week. Being that I work closely with the youth, the enemy was attacking me the whole week on the little things. Things didn't work the way I designed them, but in the end, the way they turned out was way better than I imagined them. But when I stood at the back of the auditorium and watched 1200+ people worship, or the hundreds of people that gave. their lives to Jesus, all of the troubles disappeared and it all just helped me realize that with God involved, I need to stop sweating the little things the enemy was using and be thankful that God is using me to set the table for many people to experience his love.

As I close this blog post up, I would love to ask for prayer. Not for me, but for the hundreds of students that gave their lives to Christ. For the thousands of students that learned what it is like to live a life as the prodigy they are and to proclaim His name in ever place God takes them. My heart and prayer goes out to them as they walk in faith through their schools and teach their friends what they have learned this weekend. Also pray that God keeps teaching me, and every other student what its like to live a life of servanthood and to rely on our faith in him over all things. Until next time, I love you all and I thank you for your support . -Timmy