Collide Continues

Continuing the Collide series last night, our student ministry slapped on some face paint to create their very own wrestler masks! Names of wrestlers included anything from “The Kitten” to “Muffin Top Dominator”. No matches occurred, but we can rest assured that it would’ve been a pretty brutal series of combat. Wrestling with God was our focus.
The most entertaining game we played that night was where all the boys would link arms in a circle together, while the girls struggled to pull them apart. As you can imagine, it got can get quite aggressive. But the boys held out well in the course of a few minutes. When it came to the girls trying to stay together, well…it only took under two minutes for our “strong” boys to separate each girl from the other. Nonetheless, the game was a lot of fun! Worship had a similar set list to previous FOCUS nights. To fit in with the collide theme, the song “Collide” was performed by our usual worship leaders (Sarah Brawley, Elijah Schiarelli, Matt). A more recent favorite which many of the youth has gotten into is “Desert Song” by Hillsong. Every new time we sing this tune, it has a more powerful meaning to us. Each person has seemed to memorize the words “all of my life, in every season, you are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship”. The enthusiasm of getting to know the Lord better is beginning to shine.
Angie Frame taught a very important lesson that night about wrestling with God. She asked, “What is worth staying up all night?”. Ofcourse, many of the students answered, “sleepovers”, “video games”, “movies”, etc. Frame agreed these were great things to stay up for. However, is struggling with God worth staying up all night for? Referring to the story of Jacob Wrestles with God in Genesis 32:22-32, we learned about how Jacob’s troubles were not with people, as he had blamed them on all along, but they were problems he had with God Himself! In this story, Jacob wrestles with an angel all night, and Jacob exclaims, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So after a night of tiring wrestling, the angel names him Israel for he had overcome his problems with man and God. From there Jacob received a blessing.
What’s important that Angie really brought our attention to is the fact that the connection with God is not always going to be through singing worship songs and such, but rather He will see our commitment by how much we sacrifice for Him. Our time. Would we still praise God the same way when he greatly challenges us? God is not always a pocketful of sunshine, His ways are mysterious and sometimes we go through darkness in order to see His light. Whatever we all may be going through now, God has it under His control, and we can be thankful for the struggle and the happiness. Jacob was blessed because he fought until God answered his cry. Angie was suggesting that, hey, if we choose to take serious time out of our lives to comprehend the Lord’s ways in our lives, and keep battling for an answer, then God will be pleased that we have overcome our challenges. We will be rewarded for our devotion
Same as last week, the message might’ve not been the most comforting, but it is an important lesson to absorb as a Christian. In this case, as a young Christian who is yet to experience more life in the eyes of God.