Guest Post – What Can I Do? – By Rachel Joy

Happy Tuesday, my friends. Today we have a SURPRISE! My wonderful friend, Rachel Joy, is here to be my guest blogger for the day. She writes every Monday and Friday over at her blog, Noteworthy. It’s an honor to have her here with us today, and I hope you take the time to check out her blog! Enjoy. 🙂

“I’m done!” I internally screamed, my heart beating with vehemence.

As some teenagers do, I then proceeded to turn my music up probably a little bit too loudly. What can I do?

Nothing.

So why not just sit here and listen to music probably a little bit too loudly?

Did you know that there are people who are literally dying on the streets of hunger, illness, and are being abused within an inch of their lives and then expected to put a full day of work in? Did you know there are children younger then my kid brothers who are being sold into slavery?

Which is frustrating, because really what can I do?

I would love to just fix the whole thing. But it’s not that easy.

There are kids my age who are making choices every day– both for good and for evil.

I would love to talk to all the kids who are making stupid choices and just tell them about about Jesus and the amazing life that he gives, but let’s be honest, would they listen to me? Probably not.

Which creates more frustrating problems. Because really, what can I do?

How can I fix this?

It’s a messy world. The chaos that is going on everywhere isn’t getting any less messy.

I wish I could just press this magic button. A sort of “Clear all” or “Escape” key and then everything could just be perfect.

I mean here I am, just sitting here being, like, a normal teenager in the midst of all this insanity.

What?

Here I am just watching the world fall apart and doing nothing but listening to really loud music and banging away on the poor abused keys of my laptop.

It’s so hard to realize that there is nothing I can do. There is no magic button, magic speech, no blog post I could write that could change the world.

The truth of the matter is I can only be in instrument of that God uses to fix it. I can only point and lead people to Jesus.

Which… is actually really hard. It means that you have to trust in him unconditionally. It means you have to surrender to whatever he asks you to do and that you have to fix your eyes on Him even though the road is narrow and the world is exploding everywhere.

It’s not easy. Not easy at all.

It’s not easy to keep being hopeful even when everything is crashing in. It’s not easy to believe that God is forever sovereign. It’s not easy to trust in His unfailing love and that He has a plan that is for our good.

I know that bad things happen. I also know that the world is messed up because of this ugly thing called sin. But we have hope. Jesus told us we would have trouble – in fact that’s why He died for us. He died to overcome the insanity of this world. He died to break the power of sin and death.

He died to give us peace and grace and His Holy Rest.

So that we can stand strong and lead people to Him and His rest.

Sure, it’s gonna be hard. It’s hard to think about the people who are younger then my brothers who are trapped in the chains of slavery.

It’s hard to think about my peers who are in the process of ruining the rest of their lives.

It’s hard to think about the people all across America – and the rest of the world – who don’t know about the redeeming love of Christ.

How can I fix this?

Point them to Jesus.

And know that He is sovereign- even when I can’t see it.

“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.”  ~Psalm 18:32-36

~Rachel Joy