Shine Bright

I’m going to be in Suva for the weekend, preaching at the Lami church. We were expecting to have a youth event in Nadi last night, so I waited to head down till this morning. The drive from Nadi to Suva is quite a beautiful one, because it takes you right down the coral coast. This is the location of the longest wave in the world.

The shining part of the day was not the stunning visuals, it was the Senior Youth event. Lami has quite a large youth group in the church, which can be credited to the elder of the church, Tepau. Last night they added the AGC youth group to that as well, and we had over 30 people. There was laughter, singing and lots of good times to be had. There are things that Canadian youth have to teach Fiji youth, but there are parts of me that wonder if Fiji youth couldn’t teach teens back home even more. They are free, to worship, to laugh, and to be themselves. They throw off the constraints of what other people think to be their own person. It’s amazing to see.

Because of Fiji culture, many of the youth here will seek to be polite before they will seek to be correct. They would rather be polite to you than point out what is wrong. Jesus, of course, was not this way at all. A huge stumbling block for people that only want to have other people think well of them, and not offend anyone. So that’s what we talked about last night. I put the question in front of them, would you rather be liked by people or right in God’s eyes? Not an easy question, for them or for me.

The end of it all, of course, is how bright are you shining? What kind of a difference are you making? If you were to leave unannounced, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Ask yourself those questions... they are very enlightening. Are you shining bright?