If I thought God wasn’t the most exciting and interesting person in the universe, I would probably look elsewhere for another God. After all, that is what worship is all about: finding someone worth giving your all and “throwing down” all you have and putting it all on the line for Him.

Life’s too short to waste time doing anything else.

One of my favorite words in the English language is enthusiasm. I like the way it rolls off the tongue. I also like what it communicates. When you break this delicious word down into bite sized pieces, it yields its root meaning: “en” means “in,” and “thusiasm” comes from the root “theos.” So basically “enthusiasm” is the state of being  “in God”!

God is the most enthusiastic person in the universe! Every moment of His existence is infused with love, discovery and the joy of being alive. If this is true of Him, how much more should it be true of us?

Isaac Newton once wrote:

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Here is one of the greatest scientists of all time sharing his secret to life–he was a boy playing on the seashore diverting himself now and then! And all the while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him!

Youth missions trips to Mexico, Australia, or anywhere we have not been before offers an opportunity to learn something new, engage in interesting relationships, find dimensions of your personal faith you didn’t realize even existed, experience new dimensions of God’s grace, and discover how big and beautiful our world really is.

We serve a Mighty God who says to us:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-29 TMSG)

I want to learn those unforced rhythms of grace! Like Isaac Newton, I want to run free on the seashore of God’s country and see yet another dimension of His love for me!

Victor Frankl’s  “Man’s Search for Meaning” is a powerful book that every Christian, young or old, should read. Here we offer a quote from Winkie Pratney that analyzes part of what Frankl’s book is about:

“Victor Frankl was a great Viennese psychologist captured by the Nazis during World War II. He was thrown with thousands of others into a terrible concentration camp. Often they were marched out in long lines to be randomly murdered. He saw most of his own friends and relatives die in gas chambers. You never knew from day to day when your time had come. Death came by chance, the right line or the left, or by the whim of a bored guard. Many were starved, gassed and shot, others just got wasted by sickness. But many more died with little wrong with them physically. They just seemed to give up hope after a while, and a short time later were gone. Yet others, with far greater physical suffering somehow held on. Short of physical weakness, sickness or execution, they determined to stay alive until they were freed.

And they did. Frankl watched, day after day. Finally, at much cost, he learned from them and his own terrible situation a great secret. He wrote it in a little book called Mans Search For Meaning. It became an international best-seller after the war. How did he survive the horrors of a concentration camp? What made the difference between those who mentally and emotionally fell apart under the relentless terror and those who somehow found the ability to survive? Frankl found the secret of life in all that death. What was Frankl’s discovery? He said that mental (and emotional, physical and spiritual) health never comes without tension or stress. Again that is the very opposite of what most people think or say today. We all want “balance” in our lives. We all want to reach some ideal state where there is no challenge or pressure. We all look for a situation where we “have arrived” and no longer need to do anything. We all seek peace. We all take it as a maxim: “Nobody’s perfect.” And there we stop. We want health without challenge or conflict. We want to be strong but we want it to be easy, fun and risk-free.

Yet true health, true peace, true worth always involves the EXACT OPPOSITE. Those that died in the camp outside of physical failure died of lost dreams. Those that lived set a goal to be out of that camp by a certain time if they were not killed first. Living by that goal they survived incredible pressure. If that time came and they still were not free, they either set a NEW GOAL, or within a few days just laid down and died. Constant challenge made the difference between life and death. Living without a goal is death about to arrive. What we need, said Frankl is not “a frictionless, tensionless state without challenge or pressure” but a goal greater than ourselves, something continually worthy of our highest commitment. You cannot live without something to give yourself to that is greater than yourself.”

(We would love to host your mission trip to Mexico. Use the contact form to get the process started!)

For more Pratney reviews, analysis and resource material, go to: www.winkiepratney.com