Imagine: you’ve made a choice that will change the course of your life forever. What lies behind is a life you can’t go back to or be content in, so you have chosen to leave it. If caught, you would be severely punished, and yet the future you venture towards is vastly uncertain and unknown.

In many ways, this analogy applies to the Christian walk: being saved by grace and living righteously will require us to step on to a different path. Becoming sanctified by the Lord will mean leaving our old lifestyles, haunts, and routines in order to make new ones that glorify God. In doing so, we may find that those we once called friends no longer understand us and shun us. We may find things that once gave us comfort, don’t anymore.

I remember being 20 years old at a Friday night worship service. It was an all-are-welcome event, so we brought the youth up from the church basement to be a part of it. In the middle of a song, I felt a little tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see my Pastor, David Knapp, standing next to me. With a little smile on his face, he leaned down so I could hear him and said, “Do you think the youth band has a song they’d like to share?” At this point, we had a small youth band comprised of a handful of teens who were mostly self-taught in their instruments. Still, I nodded and he said, “I’ll let the team on the altar know that the youth are going to lead after the next song.”