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Its been a year

Pandemic 2.0 came out and dropped its hottest new mixtape: “School’s out Stay Home”. Kinda lame if you ask me.

Even this week man that was lame, like who wants to stay home from school and not learn any thing. Like how dare they cancel diplomas. Seesh am I right?

The worst part is that I do not think that covid was cured over night, and it sucks. I know everyone is wanting for this pandemic to be over, for things to get back to normal. I agree with you, I want to get back to normal. I miss being able to sneeze without everyone giving me the stink eye.

But in all honestly I have heard everyone who is a elected offical say that this year is not what we excepted, I am tired of hearing it.

Our hopes that we piled onto this new year feels like a let down.

Because the sad fact is that we are still in the thick of it, we are still in the midst of this chaos.

If you are feeling down about that listen we as leaders are here to help and we want to help.

However, there is this oppertunity to seek God before this year takes you on and dives head on into the deep end.

See Jesus did this in this ministry, as he was getting ready for his work for God. Jesus started his day in a momment of pray with God, where he was alone with the Father.

Mark 1:35–39 NIV

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Jesus gets up in the morning and finds a quiet place where he meets with God and prepares himself for the day. We even read that his companions had been our looking for him and he chooses that he would rather start his day with prayer.

Evenmore is that as he prays he is in calm anticipation of what work is before him. He is ready to begin his work and his preaching circuit and start his mission. During this prayer he is becoming ready for what the Father will lay out before him, what is his calling to today?

How do you need to start the day?

Is there some time that you can put aside to praying?

Is there sometime where you can wait in anticipation for the Lord to speak to you about your calling today?

As we get to the end of this passage Jesus is found by his companions and he says to them “lets go”

I remember when I lived in regina I would go out for breakfast with my mother. Once we got our order sat down took a bite of food before she got a call. Her work was calling her in for a important task. Sometimes in the quiet we get that message

Essintaially he says “Hey lets get out of here, I got work to do”

It’s like when your chilling at home and suddenly you get a called to head out and go in for work.

But here Jesus is say “I gotta get going becuase God’s called me to do work”

God’s calling for our lives is going to the most impactful thing we are ever going to accomplish. However we will never be able to understand that if we never spend time with him.

My hope and desire is that you follow God and his plan for your life.

This is all of our youth leaders plan for you as well, that you don’t just passively live with God but that you meet to pray with him and that he tells you his plans and you go out to do them.

We are in this awesome place right now.

The world might be shutting down, it makes it easy to escape and take a momment of silence with God.

But lets actually carve out sometime to wait and ask Jesus what he has for us, not just today but actually this year.

Maybe we need to start this year out with prayer?

My challenge for you this week is to find a time in the morning to pray, sounds easy right? Well if it sounds easy then I want to challenge you to do it everyday this week. Now that is a challenge, to great a habit of praying and asking God what is plans are for the day.

My seconad challenge we are actually going to do together today. My challenge is to take time alone in silence to pray to God and just be with him. Set your year off right with a momment of prayer and solituide, maybe you need to rest in God, maybe you have a burning question for him, maybe you are just not sure how to talk with him and this is going to be a hard time for you. We are going to head up stairs and go and do this now.