I was a freshmen in college going through Young Life leader training. We met in the lobby of Winston dorm on Tuesday nights. One evening we were handed a yellow sheet of paper. Written on that yellow sheet were words. Words that deeply impacted my life. Words that God used to call me to lead Young Life. I still read them often, especially at the beginning of each new school year.
May God use those same words now to speak to you:
My Commitmentby Bill Goans (a pastor and former YL Area Director)
As long as high school kids mill around at ball games
looking for love in all the wrong places,
As long as they desperately seek an identity
based on the opinions of friends and reputation,
As long as kids limp through the stands
broken by family strife,
enslaved by drugs, alcohol, and sex
I want to be found- not in the adult section
where it is respectable and controlled,
but right in the middle
where passions, vulgar and profane,
blurt out obscenity,
Where raucous and reckless facades
hide wounded hearts filled with torment and fear,
Where the price tags have been changed
and darkness confuses-
Right in the middle where God has positioned me
to shine forth His grace, His Hope,
His love and His truth.
As long as there is an enemy who can convince his victims
that tomorrow doesn’t matter,
that harm will not find them,
that chains are like jewelry and cool is free,
As long as his lies leave character, soul, and life in ruins-
when thrill goes ill and fun turns fatal,
As long as terminal is only a passage word
to an eternity of one’s own choosing.
As long as God has rendered him a defeated foe
using the weakest of us to shine a light
that pierces the darkest places,
that brings rescue to the lost,
As long as the darkness is blasted away
by the light of the world-
that Light that lives within all who
know, follow, and love Him.
As long as there is such darkness…
I’ll man my post right in the middle of all that chaos,
holding my position until he calls another play,
and I steal home.
As long as we stand in such an important place,
we must not forget what it means to be salt and light
in this tasteless and dark generation.
In Jesus,
Bill
