A very special guest post

My name is Danny. I am Katy’s brother. She asked me if I could share what has happened to me recently with my walk with God. I recently attended a youth seminar with my youth group called Passion. I didn’t really want to go. I kept asking my mom if I could just not go, but she kept saying that I had to go. Right now I am going to give you some background information about me. I was saved a couple years ago, but my walk with God had been struggling. I wasn’t really spending time with God, just trying to get through my devotions (when I had them). I really hated hearing about God, and Christian music annoyed me. I was really falling away from God. Instead of having positive influences in my life I had negative ones. I was filling my head with junk. I am not saying that all secular music is bad, but the music that I was filling my head with was bad. Instead of having God honoring things running through my head I had junk! Pretty much everything that I thought on all day was not something that glorified God.

So, now you know how I was doing with my walk with God (if you could call it that). I was walking with the world. I didn’t want to be changed. I liked walking with the world, but that same world would leave me feeling depressed and like I was nothing. Now the world can’t tell me that I am nothing. I am a CHILD OF THE KING!!!! So, Friday arrived and all day I was dreading going to Passion. The time finally came.

I was very glad when I finally got there. It was SO Christ centered. It was a two day event. We got there on Friday evening. Before we went, we picked out three workshops to go to. I was expecting them to be boring and I just wanted to get them over with, but we didn’t have them on Friday. We had the main speaker, Mark Shaw, he did a main session. So Friday was worshiping and a main session. The worship was AMAZING! It was just great to be with other teens that wanted to live for Jesus!

After some singing and games they showed us a video. It was naming all these countries all over the world that had NEVER heard the name of Jesus! Here I am thinking about ME! There are people dying that haven’t heard the name of Jesus!!! Matthew 28:19-20 says:” Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” That means me! I had used the excuse before that it meant some one else, but it means me! As that video played I kept hearing a still, small voice telling me that I needed to go to all the nations preaching the Bible, but I kept thinking, “I can’t do that! I am supposed to stay in America making a ton of money, and have a perfect life!” That is not what God was telling me though! God broke through all those thoughts and told me that He wanted me to go!

On Saturday we came back to Passion. We started off with some worship music and then Mark Shaw spoke a little bit. Then it was time for the first workshop. To tell you the truth I was dreading my workshops. I still didn’t want to give up a lot of the things that I still clung to. When I got to my first workshop, Passion for Purity, I sat down not expecting much. When the speaker started talking, I started getting convicted. The more he talked the worse I felt. He told us that a good way to judge what we are doing is to use the mindset of: “Would I do this in front of parents?” It is true though, we should be able to tell our parents EVERTHING that we do EVERY minute of EVERY day!!! Then he told us that we need to guard our hearts against things like music. Right then some warning signals popped up in my head telling me that he was right and that I was not guarding my heart! I decided that I needed to surrender ALL to Him!!! That meant the music that I listened to, the movies that I watched, and the things that I thought!

The rest of Passion was just as good, all I could think about is the fact that I serve an AWESOME God!!! That is the biggest thing that I learned. It was kind of hard leaving, but I knew that we had to put to practice what we had learned a Passion. When I got home I was glowing I was so filled with joy! I was ready to practice what I had learned. One of the first things that I did was delete most of my music off of my MP3 player. At Passion I had learned to love Christian music! I filled my MP3 to the max with Christian songs so that I would always be filling my head, with good, wholesome things. That doesn’t mean that I think it is wrong to listen to non-Christian music. It isn’t unless you know that it is not God honoring and that you shouldn’t be listening to it! On Sunday I started feeling REALLY discouraged. Satan was attacking me because I was trying to live for God. I started feeling like I was nothing and God could never use me. As I laid on my bed feeling discouraged I decided to switch on the radio. It was set for the Family Life Network, and right as I switched it on my favorite song, Mighty to save, came on the radio. I was AMAZED! I know you can say that it was a coincidence, but I think that God used it to encourage me. Then I got scared because Katy started not being able to breathe, so that quickly got my eyes off of me. God had used Katy to encourage me, and now it was my turn to encourage her! If you want to know what happened to Katy it is on an older post.

I just have to share with you what God taught me today. I woke up and asked Him what I could do to serve Him today. A thought came into my head saying, “You can’t help Him, because you are only fourteen.” I got out of bed feeling kind of discouraged about the fact that I was so young. I opened my Bible to 1 Timothy to have my personal devotions. The verse that stuck out to me was 1 Timothy 4:12 it says, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.” That amazed me! God had spoken to me directly from His Word!!! Just because I am fourteen doesn’t mean that I can’t do something to serve Him! He has blessed me so much. I am ready to make a difference for Him today! Are you going to let Satan fill your head with lies saying that you are “too young” or “to old”? Go out and serve Him!