Where is God leading you and how is He leading you there?

I’m sitting in my office this week simply just looking back on how I got to where I am now. I’ve been looking at pictures from my time in youth group. I look at who I was when God brought my best friend and mentor into my life my Sophomore year of high school and because of God bringing him into my life, where I am now.

Currently I am the Director of Student Ministries at Community Grace Church in Warsaw, Indiana. Eight years ago if you would have asked me if I was going to be in this position now, I would have laughed at you. I thought I was going to be a fireman in my hometown of Kendallville and thought I was going to follow in my dad’s footsteps. I thought I had my life figured out, until my junior year of high school when God shook my plans and laid a burden on my heart.

Growing up I was always known as the wild child. I was loud, hyper, and just plain annoying. I was told most of the time to just calm down and whenever I was disruptive I was placed in the back of the room or just sent to the principal’s office. The teachers I had growing up throughout elementary and middle school where awesome. Do not get me wrong. I will be forever grateful for their investment into my life and how many of them saw something greater in me as well and pushed me to maturity. The only problem throughout my elementary and middle school years is that I did not care what anyone wanted out of me. I was used to just being told that I was annoying and needed to be quiet, mostly by classmates, and thus I had a huge burden to be accepted and quite frankly even noticed.

So I continued to be loud and annoying and took any kind of attention I could get. I was just longing for someone other than my family to really show that they cared about and wanted me around. This burden really started growing when I entered into high school and because I had this burden to be accepted and I was at a pivotal point in my life, I was beginning to think that drugs, drinking, and sex would help me feel accepted. Praise The Lord, God had other plans.

When I first met Dan, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I thought he was going to be just like every other person who I thought cared about me but as soon as I was graduated he wasn’t going to care anymore. I could not have been more wrong. The intentionality that Dan showed me and his willingness to pour into me regardless of how I acted built the trust I had with him and slowly I began to open up to him and starting to confront the sins and things that needed to change in my life.

I had no idea why God had placed my family in First Christian Church back when I was in 3^rd grade, God had a bigger plan for my life and placed me where he knew that come my sophomore year of high school I would need someone in my life like Dan, who I would listen to and who would finish the work that my teachers throughout my grade school years started.

I want to ask you, what is God is preparing you for right now? Just as God brought Dan into my life 8 years ago, what is God doing right now that could have a impact years from now? Just as God led Moses through wilderness to prepare him to lead the Israelites through the same wilderness, God is preparing you for something. What that is? I have no idea, but know that God knows where he is leading you and who better to be leading you than He who created the heavens and earth and you and me and knows you better than you know yourself?