My buddies. (original)

I spoke with my very good friend, Jimmy , last night. He is the guy I mentioned in my first blog. He is the one who encouraged me to start writing these silly things. Anyway we were talking and I started thinking, I have done a lot of crazy, fun and idiotic things with the youth at our church and guess who was there most of the time, Jimmy. I guess that is why Jimmy and I are good friends, we have so much in common. For example, I am young and Jimmy is, wait, that's not a good example. Jimmy is smart and I am, wait, that's not a good example either. Hold on, I know I can think of something. I got it, pie! Jimmy and I like pie. I am kidding, of course. We have a lot of things in common, first and foremost we both love God. We have a passion for the youth of our church, we both went to college to major in Physical Education, we LOVE pranks, computers, and we both like pie. These examples are just a drop in the bucket of things we like to do. But I think the one that brought us together is our love for the youth in our church.

In most cases, I am more comfortable talking to these teenagers than I will ever be talking to someone my own age. Why do you suppose that is? I think it is because God gave me a gift. Some people have a gift of music, or speaking, or even leading. My gift is to act like an idiot around teenagers. Once they see I am not like most other adults they feel more comfortable around me. They do not look at me as a old man, even though that is the nick name they gave me. They come to me for advice and for me, that is scary. I used to worry about it because I am not a very smart man. I mean, I do not have a degree in psychology or anything. But my buddy shared with me that God would not have put me in this situation if He was not going to be there to tell me what to say to these kids. I try to do my best, with Gods help, to tell them what I think God wants them to know. (See I told you Jimmy was smart.) Let me give you one example. I wrote about World Changers in my last blog. When I went to WC we took with us a lot of youth. We had so many young men that at the school we stayed at our group of guys was given to sleep in, the whole gym. One night after lights out a young man came over to my air mattress and sat on the corner and started talking to me. He was having problems with his girlfriend, his parents were on his case about which school he was going to go to in the fall, just a number of things a teenage boy goes through when trying to decide his future. Before I knew it there were two more guys sitting there talking with us. Here we are in the middle of a gym, surrounded by 75 other teenagers, talking about what God has in store for there lives. Like I said before, who am I that I should give these guys advice. Well I did my best and told them what I thought God would want them to know. Like, don't get married till you are 50! Just Kidding. You know, I always wondered if I told these guys the right thing. Then one day God gave me an answer. We were having some sort of get together at my house and one of the boy's mom was there. I was in my computer room when she came in and sat down to talk to me. We talked for almost an hour when she finally looked up at me with tears in hers eyes and thanked me for being there for her son. I told her I didn't do anything. But she said I did more than I would have ever dreamed. Come to find out the young man did not know what he was going to do with his life but after our talk he decided to go to college. I told her that it was God and not me. You want to talk about a blessing!

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. Back to my buddies. There IS another guy in my life who I guess you could say is my buddy, but honestly he is much more than that. He is my father, friend, savior. In some ways we have a lot in common and in others we don't. He was sinless, I am full of sin. He was a great teacher, I try to do my best. But on the other hand, He loves me and I love Him. One day we will live together, forever in Heaven. Jesus, Jimmy and me playing jokes on the youth there. You know we will because God does have a sense of humor. I mean just look at me.

Jesus is my Heavenly buddy. I hope you can say the same thing.

God bless,
Joe

My buddies. (original)