God's In Crowd

"I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11)

     That has been pretty much my favorite bible verse for a while now.  It just keeps coming up.  It came up again last night when Courtney Traylor delivered an amazing message to all of our youth.  (I have on good authority that Jeremiah 29:11 is her favorite bible verse too.)
     I cannot give justice to how passionate and meaningful Courtney's message was so I will just give you a couple points to think about that Courtney brought up last night.
     First, remember that in times of struggle, and times of trial even if you yourself don't realize it-God is there.  You may not realize it at the time but He is there.  Courtney talked about problems that youth face in school such as bullying and being popular or not.  And in those times God is always with us helping us get through it, we sometimes just don't realize it.
     Second, to quote Courtney: "remember that you are always part of God's in crowd."  I really like that statement.  Not all of us are going to be part of the in crowd at school.  I sure wasn't.  Courtney, by her own admission, wasn't either.  A lot of us focus on being part of the "in" crowd at school but what does that really even mean?  Who determines who's in and who's out?  And does that really matter.  No!!  We shouldn't worry about that.  The in crowd that we should worry about is God's in crowd.  And we are and always will be part of that in crowd.  We belong to God and there is great hope in that!!

Grace & Peace
Kevin