23 Oct A Night with YoungLives

I am always overjoyed when I can share the gift of ART with others—especially for the mission of showing others who Jesus is in a creative way. So when my friend Rose asked me to lead a devotional and art project with the women of Jacksonville YoungLives, I was all in!

 
You may not know this about me, but I served on staff with Young Life for two years in 1992-1994: one year in Heidelberg, Germany and one year in Jacksonville, Florida, so this ministry is very dear to my heart. YoungLives is Young Life’s ministry with teens who are pregnant or parenting. This non-profit Christian organization is designed to EMPOWER and EQUIP teen moms to become the women and mothers God created them to be.
The devotional we studied was an excerpt from my James: Following God’s Road Signs Bible Study and our key verse for the evening was James 1:2-4:
“Consider it pure JOY my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you KNOW that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must nish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4 
We discussed questions like: When trials hit your life, because they will, where will you FOCUS? Will self-pity raise it’s ugly head, or will your focus be on GOD—TRUSTING that He is building your confidence in Him? We learned that if we keep our FOCUS on God and keep going, despite opposition, He will finish His work in us to make us more mature and complete in our faith!
To emphasize the promise we studied, we made one of my favorite art projects: The Joy Jar. The Joy Jar was created so that you would have a place to write down your trials and put them into the jar. A week from now, two weeks, a month…take out a piece of paper and SEE how GOD has used your trial to make your faith BETTER and STRONGER.

If you’d like to do this devotional and art project with your small group, kids, or just a fun weekend activity, CLICK HERE for the full instructions. A HUGE thank you to YoungLives Jacksonville for inviting ThouArtExalted to your small group so that we may share the love of Christ through creativity. You are doing incredible work in Jesus’ name and we are blessed to be a part of it!