Father's day and chocolate pudding

We are going through a series where we are "Unpacking" Oswald Chambers' devotions, usually by letting the students spend some time discussing them amongst themselves. I came across the November 5th devotion, and felt like that was the one I wanted to share with the group.

So we read through it together, and then in groups of five, I let the students talk about it s'more. The devotion was about the "long, long trail" that God will lead us through. He writes that God will lead us in directions where we do not "know exactly why God is taking us that way, that would make us spiritual prigs." (Prigs is a wonderful word which you should look up) In the end though, we'll come to an "A-ha!" moment where we realize that God has been preparing us for great things all along.

Afterward, I told my story which included the loss of my cousin when I was really young, and how that led to the opening for Mark to be adopted as my brother. Before I shared my story, I realized that I had spent most of last week thinking of myself. Not like any of this is really new, but most of the time it's overwhelming, and the point is I wasn't thinking about these students. So I decided to pray, and ask for major help. In fact, just an hour before I shouted at God saying, "I can't do this without you!" (I was outside, so it didn't feel that loud). In my prayer at this moment, I prayed for at least one student to resonate with my story; to hear how God is faithful, and can use the sufferings in this life to prepare us for moments we couldn't even fathom.

Yesterday was also Father's day, and I remembered one student had lost his father within the past few years. Sure enough, the student came up to me after the service to say thanks. With tears in his eyes, he said that he was really wanting to trust that the loss of his father would mean something to him.

Talk about something that will take your breath away.

In the evening was Fusion, in which we had a very small group show up. We watched Louie Giglio's Indescribable talk from a few years back, and I think it was helpful because every age could learn from it. Louie talks about how big our God really is, and thus how awesome it is for Him to include us in the story. Our group gathered together afterward to discuss some of this, when one student piped in,

"I just think of it as chocolate pudding."

I hope the look on your face is as priceless as the ones in the rest of the circle :). He explained that chocolate pudding = God's love, and that there's an abundance of chocolate pudding that God is delighted to share with us. It covers us. "And it's delicious!"

This reminded me of my friend from college who thought similarly with 1 John 3:1. She said it was like she was swimming in a pool of chocolate that was God's love. I'm cool with this imagery as long as it's dark chocolate. Preferably Ghiradelli's.