A Letter I received from a young man

Is it as obvious to you as it is to me how exceptionally capable 

young men are of maturity? 

If this picture doesn’t convince you read this letter I received.

I received this email from a 15 year old young man I have been discipling for the past year and a half. When I first met him at camp he seemed devoid of almost any ability to control his impulses. He was a constant drain on my energy. And yet, underneath that foolishness great potential seemed to loom. We started writing back and forth, I got to know his parents, and the results of lots of time and prayer can be seen in this email. It stands in such stark contrast to his former childishness that I called him after receiving this to make sure he actually wrote it. “Everything but the poem” was his response. I hope you are as encouraged by his words as I was!

Here is what he wrote:

“Strength. Sometimes I strive for it in the wrong way. I try to muster up my own courage, I try to be stronger, or squelch any fear I may be having. I try. I try. I try. And it’s all wrong. That’s why true strength can often elude us. WE are doing the trying. True
strength and power comes from the Lord. It is HIS might that helps us.

Isaiah 30:15 “Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me.”

So many things I get wrong when I do all the striving and trying on my own. “I.” I do the trying. I need to lay down the “I” and instead replace it with “HIM.” I need to depend on the Lord instead of depending on myself. If that means I need to acknowledge my weakness and humanness, then that’s what God wants for me to realize that it’s not by my own doing that I excel. The glory goes to God alone for getting me through life’s battles and giving me the courage and strength I need to be victorious in them.

I need to settle down. Often we can become little whirlwinds of activity trying to control the circumstances in our lives. We spin into motion trying to solve this or that. God often wants us to settle down and be still. Letting Him speak to us or move on our behalf.

God’s been teaching me a lot about His strength in the past year. He’s been showing me that so often we go at it backwards. When you want to be first, you need to be last. When you want to be at the top, you need to start at the bottom, and when you want to be strong, you must admit you are weak. Only then can we create room for God to work in us and FOR us.”