So I’m sitting here watching my nephew’s preschool play called, “Spring Sing.” The whole production was on the Lord’s Prayer. You remember that prayer don’t you? That prayer that you probably learned to recite in the most passionless and monotone voice from someone who never truly got the meaning of it.
And now back to my nephew and his classmates.
And then they started to sing. They were nowhere close to the key that the song was written in. They didn’t keep the beat very well. The soloists wrapped their mouths around the microphone like they were sucking on a lollypop. And yet they kept a room full of proud parents on the edges of their seats in adoration and parental pride. And it hit me: Our Father in heaven feels even more adoration and parental pride over us.
So keep loving on teenagers. Keep helping them through the junk around them. Keep pointing them to Jesus. And then pause and listen—you just might hear the applause of heaven, and the Father say, “Great job.” And when you forget, ignore the commentaries and theological textbooks. Rather, go to a preschool play that’s all about Jesus. It will remind you what we’re supposed to be like: simple and all about Jesus.
Brian Holland is the youth pastor at a church in Pomona, California.