So, over the last two weeks, I went to a Christian leadership school, called TeenPact www.TeenPact.com (Check it out folks, it'll change your life, seriously!), to get trained to teach their program. Part of the training was giving a five minute devotional; something we might be asked to do during one of our state classes!

So, this was an excellent public speaking opportunity! Normally, I don't mind speaking in public when I am given something to talk about. The only instructions we were given however, was to share a piece of Scripture with the group, or something that God had been showing us lately. So there were many different angles we could take on this. We were allowed to pick which day we wanted to do our devotional, and I chose Wednesday, the last day. So that whole week I prayed about what I might be able to share. I called my mom and i talked to others and asked them to pray that God would show me what I ought to talk about. I truly had no idea what to talk about.

It wasn't until Tuesday night that I had even a real idea of what I might share. So as I was thinking about things God has shown me, I kept coming back to the fact that one of my biggest struggles is handing everything, all my life, over to Christ. I can do nothing and am nothing with Him.

So, with that thought in mind, an outline was formed.

We looked at Romans 12:3 which says "For the by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you no to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."

Turning over my life to Christ, relinquishing all false concepts of "my rights", and humbly submitting all I am to my Savior is very difficult because I so often fall victim to "thinking more highly of myself than I ought to think."

A remedy to this false thinking though, is realizing just how small we are, and just how big God is. One of the ways in which we can see this is when we think of God as the Creator of the universe. Now, we often refer to the God of the universe, but I think sometimes we don't realize just what that means. We then looked at Psalms 139: 13-16 which talks about how God formed our inward parts, knit us together in our mother's womb, how we are fearfully and wonderfully made, how the Lord formed all our days etc.

This is where the amazing providence of God comes in. For seemingly no reason ( obviously part of God's sovereign plan), I had brought along this little lapel pin that was the exact size of an unborn baby's feet, 10 weeks after conception. it looks like this: I had no reason to bring it, I just thought it was kind of neat and pinned it onto my backpack, minutes before I left my house to go to the airport. In the true sense of the word, our God is awesome!

I thought this was an excellent illustration of just how small we really are. We have absolutely no part in bringing ourselves into this world; we have absolutely no part in sustaining ourselves in this world either. It is only by the grace, mercy and power of our Almighty God, that we can move, breathe, and have our being. We can do nothing without God's strength. It is He who sustains us, He who leads us, and it is to Him we are to say "Take my life and let it be all for You and for Your glory! Take my Life! Let it be Yours!" (From the worship song "Glory to God, Forever" by Fee)

I concluded by encouraging us all, as we went back and prepared to staff our state classes, to hold on to nothing, realizing the greatness of our God, handing it all over to Him, and remembering what it says in Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." "

God is Faithful!!

*( please if you have ANY questions regarding TeenPact Leadership Schools, I would absolutely love to answer them!)