Mentoring
I kept waking up in the night with a thought digging at me. “How are you going to have time to mentor a child as busy as you are?” I may need to start applying some of the principles of heart meditation in this post. We have had a growing relationship with a local organization called Friends for Life. This worthy organization recruits mentors for children with incarcerated parents. You simply commit to meet with your child 1 hour a week for 1 year. So tomorrow I have an interview with our program manager to move my application forward to be a mentor.
I’m realistic enough to know that my mentoring relationship may be difficult at best. But I also know that I may impact a young life and have a lifelong relationship with someone because of this effort.
At our church we have been led to implement a model of outreach whereby we join with local organizations already in place who are making an impact in our community. We are joining hand in hand with them, or we’re blessing them in some way that benefits them. We’re really trying to live out the call of God on his people to be a blessing and not a burden. It is so obvious to me that the kind of mentoring that Friends for Life is doing fits our model of outreach like a glove. The relationships we make in the community, whether through mentoring or serving in other ways, seem to have the authenticity we are hungry for. We are training our folks to know how to start the right kind of conversations with the right kind of questions that make conversation about God possible. These conversations rise up out of authentic relationship, fueled by love and service and sacrifice. It seems so right.
Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
Our efforts will be fruitless if God doesn’t breathe on our efforts. But the best I can tell, this is what we’re trying to walk in:
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
So my prayer is this: God, empower me, increase my days and my impact according to that power.
I guess I’ll have to chase away the anxiety.
Tags: anxiety, Evangelism, mentoring, Prayer
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