I Will Put Out Hell's Fire With a Water Pistol.

So I just got back from Fusion...or Wednesday night church.

During the sermon tonight, the topic was-in a sense...waking up.
In the beginning of the sermon, Our youth pastor-Nathan-was
talking about how, in the morning, one of his daughters would wake
him up by just standing by his bed waiting for him to open his eyes.
Then he started talking about the song his mom used to sing to
him to get him out of bed. As he said that i started thinking hmmm
my mother does that to me too. Then he said all of a sudden...God
does that to you all the time and i bet you never even knew.
Well that got me thinking.
He then asked everyone...do you sometimes wake up in the
middle of the night wondering why the heck your awake? Or sometimes,
can you just not fall asleep and wonder why its taking so long to fall asleep?

Yes.

Well maybe you just need to ask God...what do you want me to do?
Of course you just might have alot on your mind at the time.
But what if...what if-God is trying to get you to pray for someone,
or maybe he is trying to get you to just understand something thats
going on in your life.

Then he told us that if something like that happens again that we should
just ask. Then listen. Then do.

I dont remember exactly what verses we were studying but the book was
1st Peter, i think.

But anyways Peter was in jail because Herod put him there for reasons
i cannot recall. However Herod put 4 squads with four men each in the jail
guarding Peter becuase he knew that Peter was friends with God...and
of course This King was stronger than the King of the Universe *smirk*
So the whole church heard about this arrest and started praying constantly.

That night Peter was awakened because this Angel had kicked him...
He had two choices to make.
1. Wake up.
2. Say some four letter words and turn over.

He chose to wake up.
And the Angel told him to get up and get dressed...so he did.
And he followed the Angel out of the cell, out of the jail, and
through the gates. (Past all of the guards)
At first Peter thought this was a vision, but then the Angel
left him and Peter was like...woah cool dude!..And went
to a place where some of the people from the
church were praying.

So he knocked on the door and a girl came to the door, and
as soon as she recognized Peter's voice she freaked out
and ran to tell everyone else. (Pastor Nathan claims he
knows this girl is a teenager because she ran and
forgot to open the door because she was so excited..?..although
i have done that before..but so?)

Back to the story. So she ran to tell the church people that
Peter was at the door knocking (still) and that the had
to go see him. But they were all like uhh noo he's
not! God will let him go tomorrow, not tonight.
But they decided to go to the door and sure enough...
there he was. Knocking away.

So in my opinion...the lessons of that story are...
1.Listen to God. Even in the early hours of the morning
...or late hours of the night.
2. God might come when you least expect him to.
3. You cannot personalize God, you cannot expect
him to be whatever you want.
4. Teenagers aren't stupid, and you shouldn't look
down on people or think less of them just because of their age.
(If your going with the whole thing where the girl was a teen)
5.Pray all the time. Because what if the people at the
church were like..hey he won't be killed till tomorrow,
so we will just wait till then to pray for his safety!
Because there are people going through bad things even
when you don't know it. Some of your friends might be having
a hard time at life...and you should be like-
Hey God, i love you will you please help out my buddy?
And the thing is...maybe God wants you to help out your friend
...are you just going to say -uh no thanks, im not good at doing that...
don't think twice about doing something that God wants you to do.
Loose your pride...its whats keeping you back.
Be OUTGOING.
Be KIND.
Be LOVING.

Because believe it or not...it might make someones day.
Or even save their life.
If you just say-hey, i love you man. and give 'em a hug.