Crosswords and Soduko

I've become addicted. No, it's not smoking or drinking or even some other vice.

It's crosswords.

Strange, but I've come to enjoy solving crosswords. There's a satisfaction in finally coming up with that missing word that totally unlocks the crossword. It's also helped to expand my lexicon. Where else could I have learned words like: Alee, Aria, Roc, Melee, and Obi. There are more, but you get the idea.

One day I was feeling a little over confident and decided to tackle the the daily Soduko puzzle. For those of you that don't know, Soduko deals with numbers. I thought, hey if I can do a crossword I can figure this thing out.

Let's just say that I was proven wrong and pretty quickly. 30 mins into it and I was ready to snap my pencil in half and burn that paper. I've never really liked numbers and my hatred was definitely amplified with that experience.

I've come to learn that youth ministry is very much like my dealings with puzzles. There's a sense of accomplishment when we find that one little thing that "unlocks" a student. I relish those "Aha" moments when their eyes light up with understanding and awareness. On the other hand, I have also found that when I try something new it can fail miserably. When kids don't seem to be getting it or aren't consistent, I find myself wanting to break something!

I wonder if sometimes God feels that same about us. I wonder if He does a touchdown dance everytime one of us finally "gets it." I wonder if He clenches His fists when we really screw it up.

I don't know, but what I do know is that God keeps trying. He doesn't give up and He uses everything He can to try and unlock our hearts and minds.

This coming school year, our youth group will be looking at those different ways that God has been trying to reach us, more specifically how He has used certain objects to teach us about Him. We'll look at rocks, clay, water, sand and how all of these objects are used in the Bible to help us understand who God is and what He's all about.

Please join me in praying for these students and also for our leaders. Pray that hopefully these lessons will hit home and be that one thing that unlocks some puzzling things in these teenagers lives. Also, pray that my only frustrations will be with my attempts at Soduko and not with my dealings with youth ministry.

In the meantime, does anyone know a four-letter word that means Lummox?