I doubt it.

Sunday night we had high school youth group. I had a student lined up to talk about his trip to Israel last spring break and was really excited for him to share that, and to talk about his faith journey over the last few years. We have been out for coffee/ice cream a few times and it's not been an easy journey for him. I was impressed that he wanted to share as openly as he was planning.

So 5pm rolls around. There are about 7 students. By 5:15pm we have 9, and that's as many as came. Now, I try not to dwell on numbers, but it's quite obvious when over 1/2 of your group doesn't show up. It's discouraging. It's frustrating. It kinda puts me in a funk, though I don't show it. But guess what? God can minister to 9 or 90. He had a reason for those 9 students to be there that night.

My senior shared pictures and stories of his time in Israel. He connected Bible stories and Scripture to a lot of the pictures. We saw pictures of the Dead sea, the See of Galilee, the corner of the temple where Jesus might have stood when he was tempted, the hill where Jesus sent out the demons into the heard of pigs, the dessert, the field where Samson sent the fiery foxes, and more. It was fascinating.

Then, when the pictures were done, he shared about his doubts about Christianity over the last few years. He shared his struggles to believe it's true. He opened up about how he has started to grab hold of faith once more, but how that doesn't mean all of his questions have been answered. It was very powerful to hear this strong, intelligent, athletic and confident student share his heart. When he was done, I shared for a minute about the place of doubts in our lives. We all have them to varying degrees and we are often uncomfortable with them. We don't know how to handle them. We are often shut down when we express them or given overly simple answers that don't do the question/doubt justice. We too often feel we have to have our faith figured out and put on a 'got-it-all-together' face when we're at youth group (or church). I assured the students that the leaders have our own doubts and we certainly don't have all the answers. I invited them to share their doubts or questions about Jesus, the Bible, their faith or anything else in their small groups.

The girls took our usual spot in the lobby area of the women's restroom :) and the only thing I really said was "Israel, the Bible, doubts, faith...Talk". I could sense this pot about to boil over in many of them, who were longing to spill some of their thoughts. We had planned for about 30 minutes and went about 45 because there was such great conversation happening. It again, was very powerful.

Shortly after youth group, I got an email from a parent who said, " (my daughter) was SO VERY excited tonight when I picked her up from Lifeline!! ...and she learned so much, saw so much, connected so much. She asked me if we could "please visit Israel someday" and this was "the best Lifeline ever!"

And here I was worried about only having 9 students there. I doubted it would be a great night. Yup, God, you're bigger and better than any plan I can lay out.

Thanks be to our powerful Lord who was working in the lives of the students on Sunday evening. It's such an honor to be a part of his work.