A Wonderful Complexity.

If you know me at all, surely you won’t find me the funniest person around. I’d like to think that there’s a level of fun in me (ha ha); but I’m not the type to come in to the room all jumpy and bubbly like a ray of sunshine. I would usually come in early before the appointed time, with a goal and a to-do-list in mind, knowing how I would want my schedule to look like for the rest of the day.

And when it comes to entertainment, my preference is rather quirky. For example, I love to read and write. But here’s the problem (which I don’t see as a problem at all): I read and write for work, for personal studies, for ministry, and for fun. I’ve stopped following TV shows because it’s such a struggle to stay interested in them - there’s only a selected few that intrigue me, but I love binging on cooking and baking shows!

To a lot of people, I’m weird.

And boring and old. For a period of time, this bothered me. I felt like I needed to hide what I was passionate about and pretended to like what they liked. To try to be a little more “normal”. But the more I tried, the more I realized I couldn’t. I really wasn’t interested in fashion and make up, and action movies and comedy. I don’t know why, I just don’t. I still get excited every time I get to watch NBA Finals and I still prefer reading Steve Job’s biography over watching any show on Netflix (except maybe The Last Dance, or The Crown) — and that’s okay.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! 

Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Psalm 139:14

From the Bible we know that God made us unique, “weird” - wired specifically and personally as an individual. A wonderful complexity. We forget this a lot because we feed ourselves with other people. Who they are, what they have, what they do; who we are not, what we don’t have, and what we don’t do. We beat ourselves up because we are so unlike what we see on our Instagram stories. We embrace this timid spirit when we face things that are outside of our comfort zones because we shift our focus from what God has entrusted to us, to all the ways that we are insufficient. We get so busy trying to become other people, and we forget that if God wants to use that other person, He wouldn’t bother going to us in the first place. Why use a copy when you have access to the original? It makes no sense.

When you try to become someone else, 

the best you will ever be is second best.

Many times when I reflect on the kind of person I have become, I still wonder how I end up in youth ministry. I remember every part of the journey, but it’s just such a marvel to know that God can use someone like me to serve junior high, high school, and college students. Someone who is a deep thinker, strict and perfectionist, afraid of meeting new people, hate losing in games, an organization freak. I mean, I’m like this walking human manifestation of the word “discipline”, while the youth ministry is this herd of creatures with high-levels of energy and fun. It couldn’t be more opposite from one another.

And yet it didn’t stop God.

God isn’t surprised by the “weird” parts of us. He wasn’t taken aback when I fell in love with basketball and books and writing and cooking. He knew I was going to become the person I am today even before I was conceived in my mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5). He knows all of my weaknesses and strengths. He made me and He has prepared good works for me to do while I’m here, alive and breathing. In my story, God called to me to step into the great unknown called youth ministry and it became a home like none other. I didn’t know I even had that burden for the next generation, but He knew because He created my heart and He designed my passions.

This same God designed you too. He created you specifically, uniquely, fearfully and wonderfully made for His glory. He never designed any of us to be someone else. He made us to be us, individually. To personally connect intimately with Him, and from that relationship, be equipped, empowered and anointed to live the person we were created to be. The purpose, the calling, the original design - they never changed and they were always there. But He leaves it up to us, how we want our stories to be: a lasting legacy of the one and only, or an endless empty chase to be second best.

- Lev.