There’s this cat that I work with, Ant, who is a relatively young Christian.  He’s got trials and questions, the occasional misunderstanding and slip-up, but he’s real about his walk.  I’ve got to say, this dude is indespensible to me in my own walk with God. 

It’s really easy to get discouraged when the community of brothers doesn’t provide what should be an essential service in the Body of Christ, discipling.  I mean, that’s what we were originally called to by Jesus himself.  Instead, we spend a lot of effort creating ‘Church Members’, getting people involved in programs, doing all kinds of other stuff, but NOT doing the primary thing to which we were called… training up others.  I once prayed to God, “Let me be for someone else, that which I couldn’t find for myself.”  Obviously that means I had to somehow create something from nothing.  I had to be a father to my children, without knowing what a father is ’supposed’ to do.  I had to learn how to be a strong black man, a role model (in as much as I can at least) to other young black people in the community.  I had to be a mentor, counsellor, listening ear.  I had to learn to be a faithful man and good husband.  All these things without tangible examples.  And THEN I had to teach someone else those things… someone else who MIGHT not be able to pick up these traits on their own and would otherwise get lost in the shuffle.

Ant is one of those people.  As a young christian, he’s seeking truth.  That’s how I got to where I am, by seeking.  Now I see someone following the path that I was once on, and I’m doing what I can to see to it that he doesn’t have to struggle where I struggled.  That way he gains wisdom from my hardships, and can then work on his own path, instead of retreading the wheel, making the same mistakes over and over again.  As has been written, “What is, has been already; and what will be has been before” (ecc 3:15)