Don’t miss out on the gift God has for you just because it’s not wrapped the way you want it to be.

Welcome! This is my inaugural blog post. What better date to start then the week of Christmas.

Mary is a great example of how God wants us to be a part of His plan. What better way to show your youth, that average means a heck of a lot to God…. and talk about a whack gift!

I’m going to share a story that you may have heard, about a young guy graduating college. He was a rich kid. The kind that you see on those episodes of “My Super Sweet 16”. For graduation he was expecting this sports car he’d been eying.

On grad day, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, how much he loved him and so on. Then he handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. The son opened it and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the his name embossed in gold. Angrily he said "with all your money, you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house.

Many years passed and the son was uber successful. But he was missing something in life and realizing his father was very old he thought he should visit him. He had not seen him since that college grad day. Before he could make arrangements he received a call telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to him, his only son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things. 

When he arrived at his father's house sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He searched through his father's important papers and saw the still gift-wrapped Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages when a car key dropped from the back. It had a tag with the words PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss God's gifts because they are not wrapped in the package we want them to be? Mary got super bunk packaging – but she didn’t reject the gift.

When we read Mary’s story in Luke1 it’s pretty crazy. Mary was super average - very poor in fact. She loved God but her favor from Him was not for being extraordinary. And the package of her “gift” was far from pleasant: explaining her “virgin” pregnancy to the fam, fiancé and tribe, nine months of carrying a baby, the pains of birth, and let’s not forget the pressure of raising the son of the universal creator!

God’s gift to Mary, us and our youth, is that He allows us to be a part of His plan despite how insignificant we are, but we must not reject the package just because it’s not the way we think it should be wrapped.

Have an awesome Christmas,

Cindy

p.s. Awesome vid for youth of the Christmas story:

About me: I live a pretty simple life... trying to love God and treat others as good as myself... I epically fail at this but mercifully God loves me anyway... different cultures inspire me... the outdoors is my passion... I'm pursuing my MDIV / Masters in Counselling at Tyndale... I spent 22+ years in the skate / snowboard / entertainment / marketing / retail industry at the executive level... led the charge at West 49/Billabong for 12 of them... I've worked in youth ministry leadership roles for more years then I can count.. after many moons in the corporate world I switched to the dark side and am currently the Manager of Youth & Student Campaigns at World Vision Canada... but more then anything I love giving my heart to mentoring and helping youth! #lovelife #dreambig #keepitreal #socialjustice #jesusjustice T/I: @cindymielke facebook.com/cindymielke

Emulating Mary’s “Yes”: God Doesn’t Call the Qualified, He Qualifies the Called

Last Monday, March 26 was the Annunciation, the Christian celebration of the announcement by the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ. Despite being a virgin, Mary would miraculously conceive a child who would be called the Son of God.

As my friend and colleague Tom East said so well, “I think this is an important day for us as youth ministers. We have the chance to be like Gabriel and bear God’s message of love and promise to teenagers. We speak on God’s behalf as we tell a young person: you are beautiful inside and out, and God has a plan for your life. What a privilege, this ministry we share.”

Last week's feast day gave me a chance to spend some time reflecting on my calling as a Catholic youth minister. Continuing the thoughts expressed by Tom, not only do we have a chance to be like Gabriel, but we are also like Mary.

We may struggle with our calling sometimes, especially when things don’t go as well as we like. We fret about numbers. We worry about logistics. And we stress about our talk or teaching falling flat.

But we can learn a lot from Mary, especially in her faithfulness and trust in what the angel Gabriel was saying. We, like Mary, may consider ourselves unworthy or unqualified. But we are comforted knowing that God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called!

And it’s not just the trust and faith that we have for ourselves. It’s the same trust we have when we defer an important teaching to another youth ministry leader, it’s the same confidence we have in allowing a grade seven student greet the Archbishop at Spirit Day, and it’s the same faith we have that we are indeed making a difference in the lives of young people.

We are blessed indeed, we are truly highly favoured. And it has nothing to do with us…it has everything to do with God.

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30).

So when we’re asked if we like what we do or if we feel we’re making a difference…may our answer always be a resounding “YES!”


Clayton Imoo is husband to Gail and father to sons Sean Isaiah and Jacob Isaac and daughter Kayla Marie.  He has served as the Director of the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver for the past ten years.  Learn more about him at http://www.claytonimoo.com or follow him @claytonimoo