Several years ago when God called me into youth ministry, I remember telling some of my friends, “Don’t worry I am not going to be one of those weird youth pastors that plays guitar for a group of kids.” You see, at the time many of the worship songs for student ministry were accompanied by an acoustic guitar and I personally did not enjoy any part of it. I always thought it strange when God called me into youth ministry, because I didn’t even like youth ministry when I was a youth, but had a passion for reaching students with the Gospel so I obeyed.

I spent several weeks in training, and then was called to be a youth pastor in a small church outside of Chicago with a handful of students. We had a desire to start a youth service, and so we prayed and planned, and one day we launched our service. Slowly but surely, we began to see students meet Jesus and grow in their faith. My responsibilities were communicating God’s Word and I loved it, but shortly into the process, we had no one left to lead worship. Out of necessity, I had to learn a few chords on the guitar and lead our students in worship.

The first night I led worship, we sang the lyric to James 4:10 (one of the few songs I could play). However, while I was singing the words, “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord” I was thinking in my head, “You are a sissy in the sight of the Lord.” The very thing I said I would never do, I was doing because of my love for Jesus. However, from that moment on my enjoyment of singing praises to God began to grow. Today I LOVE to worship the Lord by singing to Him.

Throughout ministry over the past twenty-five years, I have found myself doing, saying, and thinking things I never thought I would do, say, or think. The reason for this is simply because I am yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and desire for Him to be honored with my life. The Holy Spirit continues to teach me that my desires are best met when they are aligned with His glory. Being humble doesn’t necessitate being humiliated. What it does required is having the posture of “He must become greater, I must become less.” God’s desire is to be honored and glorified by us and we will never be more satisfied than when we are honoring the Lord.

Will you posture yourself today so that you may embrace all of the circumstances that God engineers for you?

PRAYER

Dear Jesus. So often I live with selfish ambitions for my own personal accomplishments rather than a desire to see You glorified. Lord, I confess my pride and pray that You and You alone would be the desire in my life. May my life be postured in a way for You to receive the most glory. Amen.