A Young Man in God's Plan - Chapter 1

I remember many of the young people's conferences were on the "young heroes" (ie. Samuel and Daniel) when I first entered high school. The statement "God always uses young people when He wants to make His move" became all too familiar. And so I read this book for the first time early in high school. It's always fun to go back on a book you read many years ago and see what new light the Lord sheds on you now that you've had an additional six years of life experience under your belt.

The word seemed so applicable at the time. I was a fourteen year old boy with a high pitched voice, and I had yet to break five feet, so the definition of young seemed to fit perfectly. I can still recall all the serving brothers telling us that our teenage years were the golden years for the Lord. Upon reading chapter 1, I examined my own age and chuckled. Suddenly the big two zero wasn't so great anymore.

"To be old means to be set, settled, and occupied. Sometimes some of the saints would refer to me as an old brother. It seems that this is a respect to me, but actually I do not like to hear this. I do not look upon myself as an old brother. I am not set, settled, and occupied. We always need to exercise to be young, to be new, to be renewed, to be fresh, and to be living all day long."

In the grand scheme of things, there is absolutely no doubt that I'm still a young man in God's plan. And I will continue to be one as long as I remain open to the Lord. I realize I have so many concepts on what is going to happen in my life, or even how the Lord is going to work through my environment in the coming years. But I'm glad to see that we need to be released from all of this. My prayer is that I would have no concepts about my future, and no preconceived notions on how the Lord is going to work through my environment. Rather, I pray that the Lord would clearly reveal His way to me, and give me the grace to follow Him.

"We need to give the Lord the way to go on in His progressive move through us. I hope that you will be a living, fresh, and new channel for the Lord to go on in His own way. This will require you to offer yourself to Him, to cooperate with Him."

Make me an open channel, Lord! Be living, fresh and new to me everyday; never grow old. Break through my nature and make me a clear channel for You. Lord, make me so willing to cooperate with Your heart's desire.