God doesn’t need us, He chooses us.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, part of the reason for that is that I’ve been serving on Summer Staff for the past month at a Young Life camp in Glen Spey, NY called Lake Champion. The other part of that reason is that I’ve probably been a bit lazy and I haven’t had inspiration to post something but I do today so here it goes;

God doesn’t need us, He chooses us.

This idea is crazy and it’s insane but it is true and that’s why it is so mind-blowing. In my past year of leading and at my time spent on Summer Staff this phrase has been tossed around some and I never really took it for what it was worth until recently when God chose me for something that I didn’t feel adequate doing.

This year God decided to make me and another leader on my Young Life team at Northwest High School team leaders.

Now their are a few reasons that I feel inadequate in doing this:

1. I am starting my second semester of leading, and generally, a team leader has at least a couple of years of leading experience under their belts.

2. I have a lot of responsibility on my plate with school, and with the need for a job, and with leading in general so team leading just feels like too much for me on top of it all.

3. I already feel inadequate in what I’m doing so when this happened I was kind of like “Hey God you’re kidding right?”

But the Lord spoke to me today and what He said was this:

“I don’t need you, I chose you.”

Right now that truth is an anchor for me. Today, The Lord showed me that He can use me as a team leader, He showed me that He has and will provide everything that I need to equip me to do what He has chosen me for, and that is the biggest comfort I could receive.

When I look at scripture I see that this is a constant theme throughout every circumstance. God chooses people who are inadequate and He makes them adequate and that brings Him glory and that’s why we all exist.

My favorite example of this is in John 21, where Jesus reinstates Peter:

When they had finished eating Jesus said to Simon Peter,

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?“

“Yes Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.“

Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?“

He answered, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep“

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?“

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time. “Do you love me?“

He said,“Lord you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.“

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then He said to him, “Follow me!“

This is such a testament to the fact that God doesn’t need us but He still chooses us. In the book of Acts, Peter does incredible things. Things that are so impossible for Him to do that the only explanation is that God is in him, and that is the beauty of what we get to experience every day when we follow Jesus. We get to be a conduit for the God of the universe and let others see His power through our inadequacy.

So if you are at a place where you feel inadequate or afraid about what God has chosen for you then take comfort in the fact that you aren’t needed, you are chosen, and that is exactly why The Lord is going to give you what you need to accomplish your task.

Reflections on Freshman Year and the People Who Got Me Here.

Wow. 

My freshman year of college has come to a close and there are so many things that have happened in two short semesters away from home. There have been many ups and many downs and a lot successes and a lot of failures. I want to dedicate this post to some great memories and some great people that have made my freshman year of college good.

To start: Remember that time I got a tattoo? 

Yeah that was pretty cool, I remember that the guy who did it went to my high school, when I asked him if we might know any of the same people he said: “Probably not, I graduated in 95′,” So yeah I was one and everything…

Here’s a close up of two days after I got it.

I got “Not My Own” and it is a reference to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

I got this because going into college this was one of the most profound realizations that I had come to in my walk with Christ at the time. My life was not mine, I was not here to live for myself, and Jesus paid with his blood to give me the freedom and redemption that I could never earn. 

I also met some gosh-darn amazing people within the Young Life community at UNCG, and the Lord gave me these great people and let me live life alongside of them throughout this year as we all tried to follow Him together. This pic is from our Young Life College Men’s Advancement Weekend in Boone, NC. :

 

And within this solid group of men I got to grow close with two guys who have been both amazing mentors and amazing friends throughout the year, they are always there to provide guidance and wisdom to me and I am so thankful for them.

Here is Justin Smith who is giving off some serious boy band eyes in this pic from small group:

And here is Kevin Matznick, lookin’ mad thoughtful:

This year I also decided to become a Young Life Leader for the rest of my time in college. I was pursued by some great Young Life Leaders who went to Elon University while I was at Western Alamance. Both these guys decided to answer God’s call to change the lives of guys at Western Alamance High School, and I wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Colin Campbell was my Young Life Leader my freshman and sophomore years of high school. He lives in Seattle now so I don’t get to see him much anymore, but I did get to about a month ago and it was such a blessing.

 

Steven Ebert was my Young Life leader for the rest of my time at Western Alamance. He taught me how to do Young Life skits, how to read the Bible right, and how to film and edit video which is now a big part of my major at UNCG. Steven is also graduating from Elon in less than a month and is wrapping up his time at Western Alamance as a Young Life Leader. Thank you Steven for loving and pursuing me when I was lost and for mentoring me when I finally found Christ, your work at Western Alamance was more important than you know and it had eternal implications. 

Here’s a pic of me and Steven my senior year doing my first (but not last) Young Life skit for our club. 

 

 

I got placed on Northwest Guilford’s Young Life team with some amazing people here in Greensboro, we are wrapping up our year at Northwest and we have our last club on Monday. It has been so amazing and life-changing to get to know guys at Northwest and try and show them what a life with Christ really looks like. I learned so much about what I do now from seeing how Colin and Steven pursued and loved me while I was in high school. Leading has been the most challenging but most importantly the most rewarding part of my college experience so far.

Here is a pic of my crazy Young Life team at Northwest, minus Ashley who got placed with us later in the year. So thankful for them all:

I also had the chance to go with Young Life Expeditions to Lima, Peru to work alongside of the Young Life area in Peru. We got to dance with kids at a school for the disabled and help pave the way for Young Life to plant a Capernaum ministry at that school, we got to renovate the San Paulo Young Life Club’s club room, and we got to build some awesome relationships that will hopefully stay intact until we return next year. If you are reading this and you helped prayerfully and/or financially for my trip, I want to thank you so much because Christ used us and changed us during our time there and I am so grateful for your hand in making that happen. Here are some pics from Peru:

 

So that’s my year in a blog post. So many great memories flew through my mind as I pieced this post together and I am so grateful for them. God has brought so many people into my life to get me where I am today and I am so so grateful. Jesus has been so present this year, His spirit has grown in me and matured me as a man and as a servant more than I ever thought possible. 

All in all, it has been a wonderful year.

A Constant Savior and an Inconsistent Me.

“All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship” (Desert Song, Hillsong United)

I often find my self sitting in my dorm room at the end of a long day with my mind consumed with everything that I have going on, with every responsibility that I still need to fulfill. Saying that life is overwhelming at times is an understatement, especially when you have days that leave you feeling stretched, that leave you feeling poured out not filled up. There has been so much going on in the past four days in my life that I haven’t had time to think, I have just had time to do.

Every time I blog it is because the Spirit is nudging me to. I don’t always know why I am writing, or what I am going to write, or what parts of my brain I am going to let spill out, it always just happens.

The nudge can be a verse that I read, or a struggle that I am going through, or in this situation a conversation with a friend and a bridge in a song.

I was talking to a friend who is struggling with doubt just about everyday, and that got me thinking about the times I have doubted and even just the struggles that I have gone through in my life. I doubt God everyday, maybe not in the same way as my friend, but I doubt. I doubt that I am worth anything, I doubt that I can be used, I doubt that I will succeed, and even though I don’t admit it to myself (or others) sometimes I doubt that God is bigger than my problems.

At these points of doubt, I have to unpack my life and watch it play back in my head, I have to let God and others speak truth into my life to bring me back to Him.

I doubted that I would ever stop smoking weed, and I doubted that I would ever be in a place where God can really use me. I doubted that I could really come to a point in my life where I wasn’t hindering myself from letting God do something in and through me that was bigger than me.

But when I unpack my situations and see where I’ve been, I always come back to a God who came through, every time.

I believed that I would never stop smoking weed, and I did. I believed that I would never be of any use to God, and I can see that He is already using me at Northwest more than I thought that He could. I believed that I could not get $1,200 raised for my Peru trip when I only had three days left to get it, and God came back and gave me and my group what we needed and more. Just today, I doubted my ability to be a good leader and to have a young life club that I planned go well, and it did.

When I see that these things in my life have happened it makes the Word of God come alive as I read it.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20)

This and so many other passages in the Bible are not just words to me, they are solid truths, they are words that have been backed up by what I have personally seen in my life and in other’s lives. This says that God won’t just do what we ask. He will do more than we ask, more than we can even imagine, and it is true, it has stood the test in my life. Every time that I have doubted, God has shown up more than I ever thought or hoped that He would.

I’m just so inconsistent in so many things and it blows my mind that Jesus is always an arms reach away from me, being the exact same person that He has always been and still loving me, still using me. I don’t doubt that we are all here for a reason because everything has happened way too precisely for life to be an accident. There is an inherent problem with and in people, it is seen throughout history and is still strong today. Everyone needs a Savior, everyone needs a constant person because no one is constant.

But Jesus is always constant. He is always the same, He was the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same tomorrow. He gets to show people who He really is by using inconsistent and broken people like me to proclaim His name. That is the reality that I get brought to at the end of the day. That God is still good, that He is working, and that He will never change, even when I do.

“All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship”

 

 

More On Our Trip to Peru and a Little on Comfort. (Part 1)

So this past week for our Spring Break, 13 of us from UNCG’s Young Life College went to Lima, Peru to work alongside the Young Life team there. For those of you who wanted to know and/or supported my trip financially and prayerfully, I wanted to write a more detailed entry about what we did there, as well as to address a common aspect of life that a lot of us are used to in America, and that can hinder us from fully serving Christ; our comfort.

After our flight from Miami to Lima, our group was picked up in the airport by our soon to be dear friend, Renzo. Renzo is a Young Life Leader and college student in Lima. As we boarded a bus and began to drive towards our destination; all that we knew was that we were staying with a man named Alberto’s parents; Alberto is the head of all of Young Life in Peru and has a beautiful family (Super cute kids).

The first thing that ran through my mind as soon as we made the turn out of the airport was that this place needed Jesus. The overpopulation had made Lima an impoverished area, I’ll hit more on that later on, but first I need to mention the traffic. THE TRAFFIC WAS INSANE; I’m talking like no structure, and I had been to Europe before which I also thought was crazy traffic but it did not compare to Lima traffic. Lanes, traffic lights, speed limits, all of this structure seemed to be nonexistent, and if it was, nobody followed it. If you wanted to switch lanes you basically beeped your horn, forced yourself over, and hoped you didn’t get hit. But thankfully, our driver for the week was a fearless professional, and it probably helped being that we were in a tour bus and would have been the ones squashing other cars if they didn’t let us get over.

As we drove through the city we saw some familiar franchises like KFC and McDonalds (They were all like three stories tall) and we saw a Chili’s, but the best thing we saw was a hair salon with Zac Efron’s face on it, hilarious.

Anyway, we go through a couple of gates and end up on this tight knit street, where there are houses stacked on top of houses and balcony’s galore. We went upstairs and met our hosts; a beyond generous and sweet old couple named Agosto and Estelle, as I previously mentioned they were Alberto’s parents. Renzo, our translator, relayed their message of welcome as they told us how excited they were for us to be there and that they had been waiting for us. Estelle had tea and crackers ready for us when we got there here’s a picture of our first night there:

On Sunday we got to go to an English speaking Church in Lima and there were people from all nationalities there which was a really cool experience. The church was super welcoming and inviting and we all worshipped together. But the real fun came that evening when we met up with a Young Life group from Chorrillos (a nearby town) at a water park. We immediately started building relationships with these kids and started playing with them in the fountains. This experience in particular made me think of 1 Corinthians 4:10 when Paul says that we are “Fools for Christ”, that’s because once we started playing with the kids in the fountains, just about everyone else in the water park gathered around us and just stared at us, taking pictures and watching the whole time. I think it was partly because we were a group of Americans playing in the fountains but I think it was mostly because the love of Christ is contagious and that it drew them in, even if they didn’t know what it was. Here’s a picture from the water park.

Monday may have been my favorite day. We had the amazing opportunity to go to a school for kids with disabilities. The first area in the school once you walk through the gate is an outdoor courtyard. There were kids there with their parents, the school introduced the staff and played the Peruvian national anthem, and we were introduced to everyone. One of the first things that I noticed when I walked in was a clown on stilts, and guess who that guy turned out to be? A Young Life leader named Jesús, that was such a beautiful picture of how Young Life in Peru is the same as it is here at home; leaders are willing to go to where the kids are and go to any lengths to preach the Gospel, even if that means dressing up like a clown and wearing some stilts. Here are a few pictures from Monday:

Also I want to give a huge thanks to Andrew Neel for taking pictures and filming throughout our trip, he is super talented. (You can read his blog here: http://thissideofthedoor.weebly.com/1/category/things%20im%20learning728f1d1103/1.html)

We began to get down to work on Tuesday, our main job for the week other than building relationships was to renovate the Club room for Lima’s Young Life, the club room happened to be the roof of the house we were staying at for the week. We started by sanding down the walls and wore masks on our faces so we didn’t breathe in dust. Throughout the week we had to wear 80 SPF sunscreen because Peru is right on the equator, I don’t think we were ever under 70 degrees the whole time there. There was no air conditioning either, this is where I want to talk about comfort a little bit because it wasn’t comfortable. Comfort is one of those things that we all take for granted; showers that work, clean water to drink, air conditioning, even smooth traffic flow is such a standard for most of us living in the United States. But Christ does not call us to be comfortable, He never called us to be comfortable. Comfort is one of those things that the Church can get stuck up on a lot of the time. We would rather have a nice house and a nice car than have less so others can have more.

Paul does a great job of addressing this in Philippians 3:7-9.

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”

The world teaches such a skewed message on success to everyone who observes; be the best, and make the most money so that you can be secure and comfortable. Paul who once relished in his comfort realized that it was all nothing compared to what he gained from knowing and serving Christ. Jesus wasn’t comfortable when he was hanging on a cross or washing his disciples feet, and we should not be comfortable where ever we are in our walk with Christ.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday:

I hope this painted a good picture for you of how our first three days went, and how we are not called to a comfortable life. I will post the last three days later this week, but until then, here is a video that I put together with some footage via Andrew Neel (Follow his blog!!!!)

Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PHtVXu50k8

Thanks everyone for supporting my trip, God moved through us so much and I can’t wait to share the rest of the trip with you all!

In Christ,

Matt Weatherly

Jesus in Lima.

Today is our third day in Lima, Peru where we are working with the local Young Life area to bring Christ to kids in Lima. So far we have played in a water park with kids, and we have gone to a school for the disabled and helped to establish the Capernaum ministry there.

The biggest thing that I have noticed so far is that the gospel is so raw here. There is no watered-down way of bringing kids to Christ, all of the leaders we have come in contact with are full of Jesus. Like at the school we went to there was a clown, on stilts, juggling discs; of course we would soon find out that this guy is a Young life leader.

The mission hasn’t changed here in Peru. It is still about Jesus and not about us. Our team grows closer everyday and I see Christ in every person here.

Our hosts are amazing and have such servant’s hearts. I wish I had more time to describe all of the amazing things that are taking place but I don’t! Hopefully I will be able to write a more detailed entry later. I want to personally thank everyone who has prayed/donated for us to be here and I want to ensure you that we are doing kingdom work and that we wouldn’t be able to without you all, you all are a part of this trip and what God is doing through us and I am so grateful.

“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say. ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’ ” (Luke 17:10)

“Be still, and know that I Am God.”

My second semester here at UNCG began today, and with it came the familiar busyness that I was able to avoid over Christmas break. With the new year, I started a new devotional, My Upmost for His highest, by Oswald Chambers. I was going through Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young in 2013 and this new devotional has a freshness to it that I needed. For the past two days the daily devotional title was this: “Have You Ever Been Alone with God?” The first part of this, which was in yesterday’s devotional, was subtitled “Our Solitude with Him.” As I read I came across one of the many quotable lines that this devotional is littered with on every page that I have read so far. “We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character.” Chambers further explains by relating how Jesus interacted with His disciples, to how he interacts with us in the same way. Pulling text from Mark 4:34, Chambers communicates that Jesus did not give His disciples all of the answers right away, but only when they could understand what He was saying. So first, we as followers of Christ are called to accept the calling that we have in our lives without knowing all of the time where we will end up or what trials we will have to face. This takes trust, and trust comes only when we are intimate enough with Christ to trust Him. It takes, as Chambers puts it, that we must accept that we do not understand ourselves nearly enough as our Creator knows and understands us. Once we accept that we are better suited to follow where Christ leads us rather than where we could lead ourselves we begin to change.

I always thought that I was doing quiet time correctly with God. Reading devotionals, the bible, and praying with Him. I have indeed reached an intimacy with Jesus, but this devotional has been opening my eyes and opening a path to allow me to grow even more intimately with Christ. The second part of “Have You Ever Been Alone with God?”, which was today’s devotional, was subtitled this: “His Solitude with Us.” Another quotable line starts off the devotional: “When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship- when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.”

My heart leapt through my chest when I read this. I have indeed been in awe of the Creator in His presence, without words. But after a few moments of basking in His glory I would begin to pray and interrupt that river of peace and grace that was flowing into me. This happens often, and I still get a lot out of my quiet time, but I am realizing that I have been missing a crucial part. When I read that line today it immediately drew my thoughts to Psalm 46:10. “Be still, and know that I am God.” I never knew how to be still because I am so often in a distracting place when I do my quiet time, (too ironic to joke about) I will sit in a coffee shop with my headphones in and read the Word and pray quietly. But I have been missing the opportunity to be still, and let God be God. Of course God wants us to study His Word diligently and praise Him with song, but this devotional has and is opening my eyes to the truth that sometimes the highest form of worship and obedience that I can give to God is by sitting in His glory and just listening for what He puts on my heart. That is where I will come to know Him more and become more like Him. If you are looking for a devotional I definitely recommend My Upmost for His Highest, it has, in only thirteen days, greatly increased my intimacy with Christ. God is good.

his posture NEVER changes towards me

his posture NEVER changes towards me.

Remembering Who We Serve.

Young Life is 72 years old today. This day is special, it’s a time to step back and praise God for the way He so carefully guided Jim Rayburn in pioneering this ministry, and how He has had His hand on it for the past 72 years. One of the biggest mistakes those of us involved in Young Life can make is making our work about Young Life and not about the One that this ministry was created for. Many of us are involved in Young Life because of the principles behind it, the approach we take in presenting the gospel is biblical, and it is Christ-like.

For our leadership training in Greensboro we are reading Back to the Basics of Young Life by John Miller. John Miller and Young Life go way back. He was the 19th staff member and a close friend to Jim Rayburn. This book is a book about Young Life, how it started, and a great reminder about what and Who we are representing by working in Young Life. I read this book last year for my senior leader training and I forgot how great it is. It reminds me exactly why I want to work with Young Life.

Jim Rayburn, during one of his last times speaking in front of people left us with a reminder that is remembered still. “Young Life is Jesus Christ and don’t you ever forget it”. We are representing Jesus in our work with Young Life. We are bridging the gap between Jesus and teenagers, in so we are being the very hands and feet of Jesus. We are called to love so relentlessly and consistently that people ask themselves what is different about us. This is a love that is not blocked by social and economic barriers and is not hindered by fear of awkward encounters. 72 years later that has not changed and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Remember today that we serve Jesus, that Young Life is His vessel, and that even though we fail a lot, the God we serve is much bigger than our mistakes and shortcomings.

A Little Girl and a God-Sized Dream {Part 2–an update}

godschick

My little girl has a dream to rescue orphans, hold babies and give hope to the hopeless. I love her heart. She is so compassionate, giving and caring. She spent this week making jewelry to sell to benefit the orphans and she is planning bake sales to raise money.

If you have read my last posts, you would know that my daughter has been asking us to take her to hold orphan babies in Africa for two years. These last few months, my husband and I started praying and asking the Lord if just maybe this could be Him? 

A couple of weeks ago my friend sent me a video from an orphanage in Nairobi with whom we’ve had relationship for many years. They are caring for newborn HIV positive infants, most of whom have been abandoned as newborns in gutters, fields and garbage piles. My daughter and…

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Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) – Jesus Walks On Water

I have heard this song countless times. It’s always been exceptionally beautiful to me but it really stuck out to me while I was doing my devotional today. It stuck out because I needed to hear it today. Everyday, we are being called to follow Jesus out to places where we will fail if we aren’t walking with Him. This is such an important reminder that we all need to hear.

In Matthew 14:27, Jesus, who was praying on a mountainside, began to walk to his disciples who were in a boat in the middle of the lake. So as expected, these ordinary people who are following Jesus probably are a little freaked out when they see a figure walking on the water towards them. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshipped him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

This story is so accurate to our faith. It’s so easy for us to become afraid when we are trying to follow Christ. Satan throws things at us every single day to try and make us sink. Satan tries to tell us that we aren’t good enough, strong enough, or worth enough. And then some of us, take a second, and convince ourselves that maybe he’s right. We look at the waves and wind around us, and we let fear sink in.

When Satan tries to make me sink is when I’m following Jesus the best I ever have. It’s when my week has been awesome and I’m feeling good. For me, Satan reminds me of my past. He tells me that I’m not good enough to follow Jesus, that it doesn’t matter what I do I’m already a failure, or he tries to make me feel alone and worthless. And more often than I like, I sink a little bit. I remember all of the crap I’ve done and how I’m not worthy. Sometimes when I sink, it’s gradual, subtle, I barely notice it. I’ll miss my quiet time one morning and then make it a habit until I snap out of it. But the beautiful part about this is that Jesus is always right next to me, waiting for me to cry out for help when I realize that I can’t do it by myself.

Jesus is right next to you too. Once you start to sink you don’t have to sink deeper, Just call out to Jesus. Because the thing about following Jesus is that He knows we are going to sink. He calls us to do things that we absolutely cannot do on our own. It’s the best part about our walk with Christ, not only do we have Him to depend on, but when we fail in following Him, he picks us up, brushes us off, and sends us back onto the water, stronger than we ever were.