Surrender

I recently returned to Lincoln from a week-long mission trip to Hawaiian Gardens, California with our High School youth group. We spent a week preparing The Way Out Ministry for their VBS program. This meant figuring out what to design based on their Creation theme, getting supplies needed, painting everything, cutting it out, hanging everything up. It was a long, tiring, exciting and rewarding week.

My friend, Sage Peterson, is the youth pastor at F Street. Due to his busy summer schedule with other youth groups staying at F Street to serve the neighborhood, he was unable to go on our California trip, which meant I was leading it. While I have been helping with youth since the 10th grade, I have never been in such a leadership position as this. Sage helped me prepare it and I’m so thankful for the other leaders on this trip that I leaned on for help. It may have been stressful at times, but it was such a great experience.

I would like to think every student learned something from this trip. Maybe they learned a new skill, learned more about their friends and peers, learned something about God and who He is. I know I learned a lot.
I learned that when you get stung by a stingray hot water helps the pain; I learned groceries in California are expensive; I learned how fast High Schoolers can chow through food; I learned how much energy they have and how much they love basketball; I learned how creative my youth group is; I learned more about The Way Out Ministry and their start; I learned about their mission work in the Philippines; and I learned you can’t always be “the fun” leader. 

There is one thing I learned that stood out to me the most. It’s something that I already knew, something I’ve already learned, but it was something I needed to be reminded of, something that I needed to relearn, and that is surrender. 

There were plenty of things that didn’t go according to plan on this trip. But isn’t that life? We work hard to plan things and then they don’t go how we wanted. That’s why it’s so important to give everything to God. To surrender to His will and His plan, even if we don’t quite know what that is. When things don’t go as planned, it is so important to have your foundation built on Christ. Coming out of this trip, I hope I don’t forget that feeling of surrender I got to experience. I hope I continue to intentionally surrender my every action and all I am to the Lord. 

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans” Proverbs 16:3 NIV