This past week has been amazing. I was able to go on my second mission trip after my adventures with camp KidJam (See previous weeks’ post), and spend time with some amazing high schoolers. I’m actually starting to write this post on the van ride back because I can barely contain the way God spoke to me. Throughout the trip, the Holy Spirit spoke to me in one of the most visceral ways, so close I tasted it, it infected every fiber of my being. I love the next generation. If you’ve been reading for a while you know this and if you’ve ever met me you might be annoyed by how passionate I am about it. It’s all I think about. It’s the thing I pray for. It’s the reason I am pursuing this life of full time ministry to empower leaders and lead the next generation to the awakening that is on the cusp of exploding into our world. I had a picture of what and where God wants me to be, and I am confident in the Spirit’s anointing on my life. I was called to a city I wanted to leave and a place where I never expected to build. Maybe I’m talking too much or maybe I shouldn’t share, but I am confident in this anointing and I am confident in the way that the Holy Spirit pursued my heart.

This week was a combination of a mission trip and ending with the Motion Conference. While serving I was able to see my students bless the life of a church in a low-income area of Birmingham, Alabama. I saw students who are beautiful and awesomely created by God with a purpose in this world. I saw their hearts break for this place, for the calling God had during our service. It wasn’t glamorous, we cleaned bathrooms, put together bunk beds to have those struggling to have a place to sleep, and built a wall to help with the flow of the building. I saw students loving people the way we are meant to love. I built a table with a brother of mine, and it was such a glorious picture. We had broken parts, but we worked and prayed for God to help us. We praised him by listening to Hillsong Young and Free’s, Youth Revival album and what happened was we discovered God wanted to do that with us. To build from old parts to create a youth revival. Then in the conference God told me to lay down my plans. I had wanted to move away and create ministries elsewhere, but God showed me I was always meant to stay and create a youth awakening in this city. The Holy Spirit pursued me.

When we pursue the Spirit, the Spirit pursues us.

Before the trip, I was asking God to do a work in me, to reveal himself. He showed up. God is alive and well and wants to have a relationship with us. The Spirit wants to use us, we simply have to pursue the heart of God. I told God I would go wherever he took me, and he showed me that I was always to build the youth culture in Greensboro, from the days when I was bullied to the time where I felt like I was the only one pursuing God in my high school, God wanted me here. I always wanted to leave, but God wanted me to stay. I applied to out of state schools, I was denied. I had a vision of going to join a church plant, God told me not yet. For a time, I wanted to leave where I was serving, but God showed me my students needed me to fight for them. All of these things have built to now, they have built to an anointing over my life.

A gifting and anointing are important but different.

Christine Caine spoke the first night of Motion and talked about how many are gifted but few are anointed to a call. The Holy Spirit made me dwell on this, many people have a calling to serve and a calling for next gen, but I have an anointing. God has always been shaping me for this, and I am choosing to step into this anointing. It feels crazy and I am very scared. Many people may think it’s weird or that I shouldn’t get my hopes up for this dream, but I’ve always been weird. I have dealt with so much fear and “let downs,” that it doesn’t affect me anymore, I simply embrace it. I’ve never fit in and God knew that would give me exactly what I needed to start an awakening in our cities, creating life giving small groups and training leaders to speak power into the groups they lead. I would be a fool if I believed I could do it on my own, but that’s the beauty of a body. I am gifted in empowering leaders and creating community, and my brother is gifted at sharing the gospel and proclaiming God. In all of it, we need God. We need each other. We need a united city to usher in the next great awakening. I believe it starts with us, and for me, that’s Greensboro.

I’ve tried to be vague because I don’t know what it looks like, all I know is that I will not back down on the vision that God gave me. My vision is not to work for a paycheck, my vision is for the awakening of students in our most desperate hour. It will be hard, but my life has always been hard, and God has always shown up. I don’t normally do this, but pray for me. Pray for my vision, pray for my heart to always do this to build up the next generation and not my personal brand, and pray that I am given a pathway to walk into this passion. I know it will happen and maybe that seems arrogant, but it’s simply because I know God has this already knit into the plan. I saw a vision not of what could be or may happen, but what will happen. This is a very personal post, but I hope you are beginning to see that God has an incredible plan for all of us. We simply must press into the Spirit so the Spirit will press into us. We must cling to the power of God and run into his path with confidence.

Pursue the Holy Spirit and the path for your life will explode with vision.

-Joshua Thomas