"God is the One ..." so - Have FAITH

Jesus answered, saying “Have Faith in God”

Mark 11: 22

“God is the One who makes ministry successful; He is the One who reaches lost kids, and grows the faith of the preteen believers.” Nick Diliberto (from video ‘God Speaks’ at preteenministry.net)

This is the second Blog post in my series God is the One...

We need to always minister to others from the mindset of positive expectation, looking to our Source, God Almighty.  If we are in alignment with God, doing the works He has preordained for us to do, we can be fully justified in having our positive expectations.   

2 Chronicles 16: 9a is a Scripture passage that declares a Kingdom principle we can rely on to have and to maintain our positive expectation:

9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. (NKJV)

God Almighty, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and  using the holy angels when needed, takes action to show Himself strong, on our behalf.

Mark 11:22 is the verse I have used throughout the entire 20 years I have been in vocational Christian ministry as my reminder to “look to our Source”.    Put a dagger into doubts -- Have faith in God.      

This does not necessarily mean immediate achievement of  positive results that we can see.  Sometimes, the positive expectation is achieved in stages, like planting and then watering a crop, then waiting for growth and then the harvest.    During the time it takes, when we don’t see what we have expected, having faith and exercising our faith is vital.    The words we say need to reflect our faith, not any frustration we may feel while we wait.    

Helping Kids Develop a Mindset of Positive Expectation

Words we say are particularly important when we are saying them to preteens.   There are enough things happening in the lives of our typical preteen (and some are quite serious, needing our intercessory prayer), that it is easy for them to have doubts.   This is not just “having questions”, which is normal.   The things that are happening in their lives can cause them to doubt basic things like their worth as a person, their ability to achieve what is expected of them, or whether they will have friends.    In some cases, the kids will have gone beyond doubts, to the point where they are experiencing “fears."
The number one thing to say to preteens, and to communicate with sincerity, is “I believe in you.”   This is the start toward building your level of faith into the kids you influence.    They are able to get the intellectual understanding of the idea “God is the One who is our Source” and that God is capable of showing Himself strong.  Preteen kids need to have the confidence to receive this as their own.   Telling them of your confidence in them will help -- so that your confidence starts to rub-off onto them.
This also will help them to see that you are the kind of person that they can go to, to  get those doubts and fears out into the light.

This series of articles about God, and depending on Him as the Source, is being written just prior to the start of one of the most important seasons of the year, Back-to-School season.   This is one of the critical times when a preteen kid needs big-people in his or her life that say “I believe in you,” as they launch into another year of school.