For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to grow up. I think we all have really, we dream of the days when we’re “all grown up” and we can’t wait to be adults. I can’t say for certain I know why you dream those dreams, but I know why I do and maybe it’s your reason too.

I’ve always hated being young. Being young made me feel weak; it made me feel insecure, unintelligent and insignificant. I’ve always felt like my youth held me back from being able to do what I felt was the right things at the time and make my opinions heard. Even now, I’m 18 and legally, I’m considered an adult. But I don’t feel like one. I still feel young and sometimes I feel like it’s holding me back.

I struggled with this for a while. I want to make a difference it the world, I want to do big things for Jesus, I want to help as many people as I can but I felt like I was failing because my youth was in the way.

Trust me, I’m still learning, I’m no expert yet but Jesus, as always, has been teaching me about youth.

There is power in being young. I see it over and over again in the Bible, God uses young people to bring glory to him. It happened to a boy named Elihu in the book of Job, he was a voice of reason in Job’s life when nothing else was making sense. It happened to David when he obeyed God, took on Goliath and won. It happened to Mary when God chose her to be Jesus’ mother – Mary was 14.

So if you’re young and discouraged, don’t be. God still has a plan for you and that plan starts now. Not when you become an “adult”, now. Not when you have all the experience in the world, now. It starts now in those awkward, confusing, and wonderful childhood, pre-teen, and teenage years. God will use you now because you were significant from the time you were born, not because of your age or what you looked like or what your personality was like, you were and are significant because you are a child of the Creator of the universe and that’s what matters.

I’ve always wanted to grow up. But now I’m learning that God can still use me even if I’m young and he will use because I’m young, all I have to do is follow him and that’s what I plan on doing.