Dust

Tonight at youth group we continued our series on dust. No, not the stuff you find caked on bookshelves after neglecting to clean for x amount of weeks. Road dust. The kind that gets on you after walking a path. Last week we talked about the disciples and how they lived their lives in such a way and followed Jesus so closely that they were covered in His dust. That's living life in pretty darn close proximity to someone. And that's the way we as disciples today are called to live. To follow Christ in such a way that His dust covers us from head to toe.

Following the sermon tonight, my youth paster "dusted" each of us with some flour, symbolizing our desire to follow after Christ no matter what the cost. It was so cool! It was like an outward expression of my heart. A few minutes later a friend went down to pray and a group of us joined her. I realized that I had flour on my hands and wasn't sure if she wanted it on her shirt. But then I saw it in a new light. The dust that I was covered in was rubbing off on her.

See, it's not only Jesus' dust that can cover us. It's whatever we pursue, whatever we follow after. Boys, that next fix, acceptance, good grades... Whatever our heart is pursuing is what is going to cover us. And that's what is going to rub off on people. Jesus teaches us this whole new way of living so that it will rub off on other people, so that it will flood into their lives and He will get the glory and they will see love lived out. People get to taste what walking in His footsteps is like, and then get to do it for themselves.

I could feel God's challenge to me: What dust is rubbing off of me onto others?

I want to live my life in such a way that I'm caked with the dust of Jesus' feet and so that people around me know that He is still working. God hasn't forgotten us or left us-He's moving and loving and healing and people need to see that that's available to them. That's our call as the body. To show a lost world that this AMAZING God has given us new life through His son.

Oh God, I want to be so covered in You that Your presence and love and grace and forgiveness spill into the lives of those around me, that they will know unmistakenly that it is all You. Be my source as I follow You down this road you have me on. Cover me with You.