It has been an incredibly tiring couple of weeks, that is for sure. In addition to my new job, I also had the privilege of speaking on a retreat last week (more on that later!), which was awesome, but still draining.

I have to admit, because of all of that, I had to take a deep breath and drag myself to Youth Group last night, despite how tired I was feeling. But you know what? I was so glad that I did! In our guys group, we had some great conversations that really refreshed me and encouraged me about how we’re all thinking.

One of the things that was expressed was the fact that it can truly be hard sometimes to find the motivation to work on our spiritual life once we leave the church building. We hear what we are supposed to, but because there aren’t usually any immediate consequences, we forget about it completely. As was said last night, if you don’t do your work in school, you can fail…but you can’t flunk out of church!

I understand exactly where these thoughts were coming from. But I’ll tell you what I said last night: You may not see the consequences, either positive or negative, at the time, but you will see them later. If I had known what my actions or lack thereof would result in, you can bet I would have done things differently!

So what I encourage all of you to do is to really think about the future. Not like, the Jetsons’ future…although I do love the Jetsons!…but about the impact what you’re doing now will have on your life later.

If you truly want to grow and desire to be better, that’s great! Find someone to hold you accountable. Joy and I are certainly here for you…and your parents are too! Plus you’ve got a whole church full of people that are rooting for you to succeed!

You can’t do it on your own, because life isn’t lived alone. And that’s what’s so great about it!