For Such a Time as This

There are some moments you can’t manufacture.

You can plan, prepare, and pray for the message. But you cannot make the Holy Spirit move.

You can prepare the ground, but only God brings the growth, and only in His time!

This past week at youth camp, I watched God move among our students in a way that was both deeply familiar and completely new.

Familiar because I have experienced those moments before.

When I was a teenager, I remember being in rooms full of students where the presence of the Holy Spirit felt as real as a rushing wind. I remember teenagers praying over one another, hands lifted in worship, hearts softened, tears flowing, lives being marked by moments none of us could deny once we came down from the mountain.

Those moments shape you.

They stay with you.

And when God calls you to lead the next generation, you carry those memories with a holy kind of longing. You want your students to experience Him like that, too.

Not just to know about Him. Not just to attend church. Not just to have fun at camp and come home with matching shirts and inside jokes.

You want them to encounter the living God and to begin or deepen their personal relationship with Him.

As a leader, you learn pretty quickly that you can’t force that.

You can want it, pray for it, teach toward it, and create space for it.

But until the Holy Spirit moves in a group that is ready to receive Him, every effort will fall short.

Paul said it this way:

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
— 1 Corinthians 3:6

That is one of the most humbling truths in ministry.

We plant.
We water.
We prepare.
We show up.

But God brings the growth.

This past week, I didn’t just watch one student have a sweet moment with the Lord.

I watched a group become united in their hunger for Him.

I watched fertile ground respond to seeds that had been planted long before camp week ever began.

In the middle of it all, the Lord kept bringing up the word anointed. In the teachings, the worship, the conversations... they all pointed to the anointing of the Lord. 

Earlier this year, I was anointed with oil for the ministry God has called me to do.

And that sentence still feels a little strange to write because I have been doing ministry for a long time. I have felt called to reach the next generation for more than two decades. I have loved students, taught students, prayed for students, and watched God work in students for years.

And He absolutely has worked.

I don’t want to minimize any season before this one. God has used every bit of it. I have seen Him touch individual lives. I have watched teenagers grow, respond, ask questions, surrender, and take steps toward Jesus.

But there is something different about what I am seeing now. Not because I am suddenly more qualified. Not because the methods I am using are different or any better. Not because I figured out some secret formula. But because there is an anointing on this season that I cannot deny. 

Scripture gives us a long history of God calling, appointing, and anointing people for His purposes. Sometimes the anointing comes before anyone else fully understands the call. And sometimes the call is well-rehearsed with years of commitment before the anointing in the ministry! 

David is one of my favorite examples of the anointing before the call. 

When Samuel came to Jesse’s house, David wasn’t even in the lineup. He was out in the field with the sheep. His own family didn’t seem to consider him the obvious choice.

But God did! Let that sit for a moment... Everyone doubted his anointing- BUT GOD! And Samuel anointed Him in obedience to God! 

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  -1 Samuel 16:7

David was anointed years before he sat on the throne and fulfilled His calling. He lived with the annointing and God prepared him for the call. 

The disciples give us the reverse order... they were called by Jesus. They lived with him, walked with him, and taught with him...  but before they were sent out with power, Jesus told them to wait. The calling was real, but the empowerment was still coming. Then in Acts, the Holy Spirit filled them, and what had once been a group of ordinary followers became Spirit-empowered witnesses. 

John later reminds ALL believers, 

“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.”

— 1 John 2:20

The anointing did not erase the years of walking with Jesus — it fulfilled them. It came after the call, and it gave power to the purpose they had already been invited into.

In January, I received the first-ever oil anointing in my call as a youth ministry leader. Shortly after, several of my youth were anointed at the altar for divine purpose! These physical and spiritual annointings came after years of answering the call to serve, but before this new season of fruit began.

Sometimes God calls us long before we understand the assignment, and sometimes He anoints a season we’ve already been walking in — but when His timing comes, the fruit will be evident, and the journey will be justified!

Where can you look back and see God preparing you for a purpose you didn’t fully understand yet—and where might He be asking you now to trust His timing, calling, and anointing?

Until next time, keep following the Plott, and I will be praying for us all. 💛