“What is that to you?”

“…what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:22b)

Our presentation was just hours away and the flutter in our stomachs gave proof that this was important… to all of us. I’d done several ministry presentations in the past that highlighted our urban City Life ministry, but Tuesday was going to be the first time that we used the real young people that had been impacted by the ministry. Dre and Katie were those brave individuals.

But before Katie had her 10 minutes in front of the group of visitors, she first presented the morning devotional to the five team members. Lisa, our City Life director, typically leads this time; it was a time of reading and inspecting God’s Word… and then meditating on the application and impact. But Lisa had delegated… to a twenty-year-old City Life kid from Central Ohio. A twenty-year-old who had experienced and witnessed and endured more in two decades than I had known in over five.

Katie didn’t flinch; she was ready to lead the devotional, and so she opened to John 21 and pointed a spotlight at verse 22. “What is that to you? You follow me!” In a matter of minutes she exposed the tendency of the human heart to compare, to look at another individual and wonder “why them,” “why not me,” “what if,” “how come”…

If ever there was a twenty-year-old with the right to do just that, it was Katie. The ash and rubble of her childhood could have ignited a fury of comparison and contrast; of resentment and bitterness… but not for this amazing young woman. She’s a follower. A life transformed and a hungry soul. She devours truth and models humility… and with a new found twinkle in her eye.

Katie is a child of the King who doesn’t waste her time looking back, or raising unanswerable questions… she moves on. She follows Him; the life giver; the forgiver of sin; the lover of her soul…

I was moved and humbled and inspired, and the official presentation hadn’t even begun… and when it did, Katie’s story exploded (and so did Dre’s) with power and meaning and hope. There was no room to be the victim, there was victory to
claim.

Are you wasting your time looking back, looking at others, wondering why…?

“What is that to you? You follow me!”

Thanks, Katie.