What I learned at Kyck17
I learned many things at KYCK, which, for those who don't know, is an awesome Christian convention I went on recently with this youth. Some of you guys may have come too. The talks there were amazing and inspirational, and I would encourage all of you to go next year. Today, I'll be talking about a few things I learned at KYCK and about how I'm trying to live these things out in my daily life and be a light of Jesus.
Approval
Brett Middleton spoke about how we all try and gain approval from PEOPLE, when we SHOULD be trying to gain approval from GOD. He gave us some hilarious examples about his experiences with approval. He spoke about how just slightly bending the knee can gain you approval, but God doesn't want you to just do that. God also wants you to trust in him and go with his plan for you instead of going your own way and ignoring him. To try and gain acceptance in humans is to lose faith in God, and to lose faith in God is to be a fool. He told us that if we make our stand for the king, we will never be alone. God will ALWAYS be by our side.
Now when I heard this talk, I realised that Brett was perfectly right. We ALL do our best to gain acceptance, there is no use denying it. Whether it be the 'cool' group at school, your family or anyone really, we can make very bad decisions in the process. We could take drugs, start smoking, swear, bully people or do other things that aren't of God. I remembered lots of times I had tried to gain acceptance and realised that after a while I seemed to realise most of those people turned out to be complete JERKS. I realised that I'd wasted so much quality time trying to be accepted that I'd missed out on lots of time I could have spent with my REAL friends, the people who accepted me for who I am, not the fake person I was around the other people. Now I try to be myself no matter what.
Prayer
This talk was done by Dan Wu. He told us to breathe in Gods word and let out prayer. He said that God is a great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love. He told us that God is quick to answer and hear us, and he taught us that God ALWAYS answers our prayers. Whether his answer is Yes, no, yes but not in the way you expect, or wait.
When I heard this, I found it so true. God has ALWAYS answered my prayers. Like when I wanted drama classes, that was a yes and when I wanted a dog, well, that was a no. And whenever I ask for patience, or the ability to temporarily concentrate or if I need to understand something, God usually helps me and it makes everything so much easier knowing that God is listening to me and answering me. Now I pray lots more and so far it has been so much easier to do things in my life knowing that God has my back.
Conclusion
Those are two very good things that KYCK has taught me: that we don't need to try and be accepted, because God will accept us into his kingdom if we trust and believe in him, and that God ALWAYS answers our prayers no matter what. KYCK was very inspirational and helpful for me as a Christian and I'm sure it was the same for all who went there so as I said before, I encourage you all to go next year.
By Amy Smeal. Amy is in Yr7 at Covenant Christian School.