Psalm 51

Now that we are hosting the youth group and helping Ali (the youth leader) out we are also having to do the same "homework" they are. Which means we have scriptures to read and some to memorize. This morning I was reading a couple of the Psalms we were supposed to read and noticed something I have never noticed before. I was reading Psalm 51, the psalm David wrote after being caught in adultery with Bathsheba. There are some very well known verses in there that are also a well known song sung in many churches and I was just reading them kind of like 'blah blah blah' heard this a million times before. But then something jumped out at me. Here are the verses that are so well known.....



¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
         And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
    ¹¹Do not cast me away from Your presence
         And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
    ¹²Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
         And sustain me with a willing spirit. 


Wonderful verses. Ones that can truly speak your heart when you know that you need to be cleansed and made pure again when you have lost the joy you once had in knowing you had been redeemed and cleansed. It was the verse after all of these ones though that jumped out at me...

    ¹³Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
         And sinners will be converted to You.


How many times do we stop at the end of verse 12, end with asking God to cleanse us and renew our joy and then we go on with our days, our lives, keeping it between God and ourselves and not sharing what He has done and can and will do? Verse 13 tells us what the next step should be! Once we have had our time with God and feel renewed and strengthened we need to share that! We need to teach others! We need to share with others what we have gone through and what God has done for us and as we do that we will see other lives changed and new hearts created in others and they in turn can go out and share with people they know. 
Perhaps I am seeing more of this kind of thing because of the church plant we are in and the encouragement we are receiving there to share God's love and hope within our communities. All I know is that my view of those first few verses has changed just a little. It is an inward personal change to be sure and it has to happen there first, but once it has happened it is time to share that!
May I be more open to what God is doing in me and then in turn to sharing with those around me who need to hear the good news and find rest for their weary souls.

Ahhh Youth!

This past spring Chad and I committed ourselves to getting involved with a church plant here in Edmonton. We weren't exactly sure what that meant as far as what our involvement would be but we felt it was what God wanted us to do and we were excited about it. We hosted a get-to-know you BBQ, I helped plan a church/community event, Chad helped build portable storage boxes and we have jumped in to help in other areas. One thing that was really on my heart was to help with the youth. It has been so very many years since I have worked with youth and I have missed it. I got together with the youth leader from the church and we had a talk about it all. She is a great girl. She didn't go to CLBC but she was involved in other camps for years and there is just something about "camp" people that connects us all in a way that we don't connect with others and that has happened with us. She has an amazing heart for youth and is so very good with them! 


So, we offered our home for the youth group to meet at and last night we had our first ever youth home group. It was great! There were 7 kids which was great for our first time. What a fantastic core group of kids! They were all so comfortable and talkative and telling stories and willing to pray and share prayer requests and answer questions. It was so good to hear the laughter and see the smiles and listen to the stories. So very good to be with youth again. 


I am so looking forward to what this year holds. So looking forward to learning from these kids and sharing my experiences and lessons learned with them. So looking forward to watching them grow and be stretched, knowing that I will likely be stretched as much if not more than they are. It will be a good year and I am excited to see our group grow in numbers, in maturity, in our walks with God and our hearts for the hurting. My prayer is that they will find our home to be a place of refuge. A place where we can rejoice together and cry together. A place where they feel free to be who they truly are and where we as leaders are transparent and open and real with them as well. 


Ahhh youth, how I have missed you!