When God Says No

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My summer job is working this education program for elementary school children.

It has been a lot of fun to get to know the different kids and get some more education experience.

One thing I often find myself saying as their teacher is “No.”

Everything from “No it’s not a good idea to throw sticks at our friends” to “No you are not going to color on the wall.” Pretty much things I thought I would never have to explain to anyone and here I am having normal everyday conversations about random things I thought were obvious.

I tell them no not because I don’t want them to have fun, but because I don’t want them hurt. Like in the first example, I don’t want them to throw sticks at each other because it could hit someone and they could get hurt.

Maybe that is why God tells me no sometimes. Not because he doesn’t want me to have fun, but he doesn’t want me to get hurt.

I will never understand why children make the special choices that they make, and I’m pretty sure that God probably doesn’t understand some of my choices, but I know that he loves me and wants what is best for me.

All About Numbers

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I scrolled through my instagram feed over the weekend. I saw pictures from a friend’s missions trip.

I always love people serving God around the world, so I read through her post.

She told a bit about her missions trip and then mentioned how many people got saved over the week. I definitely don’t think there is anything wrong with praising God when people accept Christ as their Savior, but why is it always a number?

I have been on five missions trips in my life, and I think about them often. When I was in high school, my youth group went to NYC on five different missions trips.

We often went out to the parks and just had conversations with people about God, but at the end of the day our group leader always asked the question, “How many people got saved today?” This number seemed to define all of our trips to the point there was this unnecessary pressure we put on people to accept Christ as their Savior.

It seemed like a competition which group could have more salvation stories.

I think back to those random people I met in the parks and subways of NYC. I don’t remember any of their names. I remember some of the events that happened in those parks, and how I walked several people through the salvation story, but I don’t remember any names.

I often wonder how many of those people were actually saved or if they were just saying a prayer that they were pressured into praying like I was growing up.

If you focus on the number of salvations in a missions trip, you are putting unnecessary pressure on everyone.

God never called us to save people, and only God can truly save someone. God called Christians to go into all the world and share his good news.