I love my friend, Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a friend of my son, Ben, in high school. I think they met on the soccer field. Jeremiah and Ben helped me start Spirit-Driven Soccer back in 2007. We gathered together some of our soccer-loving friends and started playing futsal at Ashland University. What I discovered through our initial gatherings was Jeremiah’s passion and a realization that young people need help learning to have faith-based conversations.
Years ago, I started passing Jeremiah books I’d read that helped me to grow up in the faith. Jeremiah took a step of faith several years ago, quit his successful accounting job in the corporate world, branched out to help people with their finances, and helped raise support for his father’s ministries around the world. I love the way Jeremiah takes his friends on mission trips to Thailand so they can have a first hand experience of meeting the missionaries, students, and orphans who are being raised up through Asia Mission for Christ. http://www.asianmissionforchrist.org
As I’ve had the privilege to build into Ben and Jeremiah’s lives, now they’re pouring into my life. Ben also left his successful engineering job in a large business, invested his life in developing the people and ministries surrounding him in New Hampshire, and is serving as the Chairman of our board of directors of Spirit-Driven helping develop his father’s ministries. Jeremiah is now serving on our board of directors helping us with our finances. Jeremiah has always looked up to Ben as a spiritual brother. We got to help Jeremiah as he took steps to help Asia Mission for Christ become a 501©3 non-profit ministry. And now we’re all working together pursuing ministries near and dear to our hearts and families. I think of Jeremiah as one of my spiritual sons—just like my other four sons.
But when we last visited with Jeremiah in Columbus, OH, I didn’t expect what goes around to come around. Jeremiah slipped me a book encouraging me to read Eric Foley’s book, Coach Your Champions. I thought I was the book giver. Now Jeremiah is passing me books for my growth and development. And God knew it was the next book I need to read.
The light bulbs all started going on as I started to see more clearly the wonderful opportunity God has placed on my lap: developing and coaching the champions I meet with every week. Last night in our Spirit-Driven Thurch group, we had a group of college students speaking truth in love using words of affirmation with one another and investing in a process of helping one another reach our God-given potential. Love, laughter, and tears filled our home as God’s Spirit took over. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I had no clue what God would begin to do as I invested in my spiritual sons and friends. They probably had no idea what God would do when they invested in my life. Our Spirit-Driven groups are just beginning to experience some of the fruit of connecting as a spiritual family. And we’re just getting started! The best is yet to come.
I’m reminded of God’s teaching in Ecclesiastes 11:4-6. “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. God’s ways are as hard to discern as the pathways of the wind, and as mysterious as a tiny baby being formed in a mother’s womb. Be sure to stay busy and plant a variety of crops, for you never know which will grow—perhaps they all will.” What if our most important calling as Christ followers is to invest in the development of our lives so that we can invest in the development of the lives of those we’re with every day. We don’t grow in a vacuum. We need one another to become mature and full grown in our faith. Forty-four years into my faith walk with Christ, guess who is helping me learn how to have more transformational faith-based conversations with young people? Young people. Isn’t God good!
Who is helping you learn to have faith-based conversations amidst everyday life?
Do you have teachers who are younger and older than you?
What are you learning?