What Do You Mean, You Can't!

I enjoy reading blogs from several different men of God.  There subject matter covers everything from whats going on at their churches to things God has shown them in Scripture.  One particular blog that I always take time to read and it really gets me to think is Perry Noble's blog.  Perry Noble is the pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina.  Perry speaks his mind and never sugar coats what God has revealed to him.  His blog post yesterday was on the subject of saying "I Can't" to God. 

That got me to thinking about how many times that I have said that very thing to God.  We live in a world where success and possessions have become the focus and the things that God wants us to do have been set aside.  God commands us in Mark 12:30-31, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, and to love our neighbors.  I had to take a gut check a couple of years ago.  I was so wrapped up in having stuff and how people saw me that I was saying that very thing to God, I Can't!  At first, it was a very difficult thing to do.  But now, I have placed everything in the Lord's hands.  The outcome has been God blessing my family. 

Here is just one example of what God can do when you are obedient.  Last winter, my wife and I began to talk about the idea of opening up our home on Sunday nights to the youth of our church and any other teenager that wanted to come.  We felt God was leading us to do this.  We kicked questions around for a couple of months.  How can we afford to feed them?   We don't have enough room?  What are they going to do while there here?  The more that we talked about it, the more that it seemed that there was no way that we could do this.  We finally turned it over to God.  In the spring, we started opening up our home on Sunday nights to the youth.  Our first night, we had 15 teenagers.  We fed them, had a devotion with them, and played a game.  It has been almost 5 months since we started, there are around 30 or so regulars.  We have even had some nights where there were close to 50 sitting all around our living room.  They still get fed when they come.  Parents have volunteered to prepare the meal or to bring things.  The devotion time has been opened up to any of the youth that want to share something with the group.  My role on Sunday nights have become, making sure the bathrooms are clean and to get the activity ready for the night.  The real blessing that has come from the friendships that we are developing with their parents.  Seeing the relationships grow among the youth and listening to the youth sharing a devotion with each other.  Even some of the middle school youth have shared what God has given them.  God has blessed us in so many ways by doing what He wanted us to do.  I want to invite you to come and see what the Lord is doing in our group.  If you have a teenager, we hangout from 5PM to 8PM every Sunday night.