PREFACE Omnis sa simagna tiuntio eum quatis essumen ducillu ptatet lanti arum quo bla nis dolore seque simporum is doluptur maio. Et et faceati consend aecaboreped et rest, cusciae vollorepere conet vere ma eos as dellupta sit facipsum nusti te landa soluptatem. Volupid eatibus ex es repe volutem ipic te nus explanis sinvend ionsequi dolupta sitiamet fugit rerum fugit harum facia velitatqui doluptas vide nos et voluptiurion perchil imos ex eossint ipsunt alit aut fugit volupis sinimporem laccus expliquid eum accupit, te dolorem re latur, si autet ad minumquis am cus, optaque comnisto velit, to et am sitaepuda ditasincia sitaquam ium facid quid mintem volorio repro- rro volupta temposandi consers piciatin paritam ellam, veligendi cor atet quia conse max. Jessyka & Kiefer Dooley PREFACE Hello youth of the Rocky Mountain Conference! We’re writing near the end of December, 2020... at the tail end of what has been a unique year for everyone and a difficult, stressful, trying, and scary year for many. We missed you all a lot this year as we cancelled youth events and summer camp to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and keep our communities safe. During the year of cancelled events, we undertook a special project for you! This devotional series is a weekly connection for you to read and follow on your own, with your family, Pathfinder group, church group, or even a group of your close friends. Over the course of the 52 weeks in 2021, we’ll explore what it means to live out our God-given purpose. As you follow along each week, we hope that you’ll find inspira- tion to connect your story to the greatest story of Jesus and by doing so will find new ways to go from ordinary toFully Alive. Before we dive in, we’d like to acknowledge and shout out the people who helped make this devotional series a reality: Our summer camp 2020 team, specifically John Kent and Joselena Madrigal who lead the initial charge in creating the devotional plan, Eddie Hall who crafted the design, and Vanessa Alarcon who translated the devotional into Spanish. We pray that 2021 is a year full of joy and meaningful experiences for you. We also hope that this devotional finds a meaningful place in your jour- ney with Jesus. In the midst of life’s ups and downs, we are confident that through God’s power, we are able to Live Greater each and every day. Jessyka & Kiefer Dooley Because God Values Me, L A N O I T 2 O I Can Value Myself 0 V 2 1 D E LIVING FULLY ALIVE WITH SELF – OUR BELONGING ESTABLISHED Q1,W1 BIBLE Start in the Bible! Read the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32. “...This brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” - Luke 15:32 READ Have you ever felt out of place? Maybe you and he knew things had gotten bad when he started a new school and didn’t know where was thinking about eating the pig slop *barf*. any of your classes were. Or maybe at a birth- This guy is at a low point in his life and begins day party for a friend and you only knew one to think about his old life with his old house or two people there. Feeling out of place is and his old family. He realizes that the ser- normal. We’ve all felt that way before. But, vants who work for his dad have a pretty good more often, there are places where we feel life. They eat well and have a nice place to like we do belong. Usually we feel like we stay, so the son made up his mind. He would belong when we are with the right people, go back home and ask his dad if he could be people that we love and trust. As we begin a servant. The son doesn’t think he is worthy this journey of discovering what it looks like enough to be part of the family anymore. to live Fully Alive, it is important to remind As he made his way up the road to his old ourselves of what it means to belong. home, someone came running towards him and wrapped him in the biggest hug he’s ever Have you heard the story of the prodigal had. It was his dad! His dad was so happy that son in Luke 15? In this story, there are two his son was finally home where he belonged. sons, and one of them wants to go explore The father threw a huge party and rejoiced the world, see what’s out there and what he because his son was back where he belonged. might be missing. See if he can find a new and better place to belong. His dad ends up Maybe you’ve felt kind of like the son. Trying giving him his share of the inheritance and to figure out who you are and where you the son takes off! His dad must have been belong. When we try to find a place to belong pretty hurt when he took all that money and in this world, we’ll usually find ourselves dis- left them for good. appointed at some point or another. However, finding our belonging in God will never fail. The son ends up blowing all his money on This story reminds us that no matter where stupid things and ends up broke, lonely, and we go or what we do, we will always have a hungry. He ends up taking a job feeling pigs home and a place to belong with God. He is RMCYOUTH WK OF JAN 2 PAGE 4 always more than ready to embrace us and throw a party! Never forget that God is longing to have you come back home and run into his arms. Being at “home” with God is never boring, because he’s throwing you a party! When we understand that our belonging is in God, we can live in confidence, and living in con- fidence moves us to live Fully Alive. DISCUSS 1. Have you ever felt out of place? When/where was that? 2. Where are some places that you feel like you do belong? 3. What are some signs that you belong somewhere? 4. How did you expect the Father to act when his son came home after making many bad decisions? 5. How can this truth about belonging in God positively change your life? ACTIVITY WEEKLY CHALLENGE Rewrite the story of the Prodigal Son in your own Make an effort to include someone this words! week. Go out of your way to show them that they belong! Ideas: Give characters names, draw a cartoon strip, explain Ideas: more about what the son spent his money on, make Ask someone to sit with you at lunch or the story sound like it was told in 2021. invite them to play on your team for a game. NOTES PRAY ________________________________________________ God, thank you for reminding me that I ________________________________________________ belong with you. Something that has been ________________________________________________ making me feel like I don’t belong is: ________________________________________________ _______________________________________ ________________________________________________ _______________________________________ ________________________________________________ _______________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ It makes me feel confident knowing that no ________________________________________________ matter where I am or what’s going on in my ________________________________________________ life, You’ve got me! RMCYOUTH LIVE GREATER PAGE 5 Because God Values Me, L A N O I T 2 O I can Value Myself 0 V 2 1 D E LIVING FULLY ALIVE WITH SELF – THE BEGINNING Q1,W2 BIBLEBIBLE Start in the Bible! Read the story of the creation of man in Genesis 1:26-28. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...’” READ - Genesis 1:26 What does it mean to be alive? A beating and Eve to be “fruitful and multiply,” meaning heart? Breathing in and out? So what does it that they were to populate the earth and cre- mean to be FULLY ALIVE? To better under- ate a family. Doing this meant that they were stand how we are to live our lives to the full- to love and care for each other and their fam- est, we need to go back to the beginning, ily. When we love those around us, our fam- when God created our world. You may have ily, friends, and even strangers, we are being read or heard the Creation Story told in the fully alive. The last way that God gave us to book of Genesis. The first chapter of the book be fully alive is also another way to love. God talks about how God took six days to design told Adam and Eve to rule over the earth and a perfect world for us to live in and enjoy. At everything that lives in it. This means that we the end of these six days, God created Adam are to love the animals and take care of the out of the ground, and later, He made Eve so whole earth. that Adam and Eve could be together. Both of them were made in God’s image - and so Did you notice the theme of how God wants are you! Being made in God’s image is a very us to be fully alive? Being fully alive means special thing. It’s crazy to think that every sin- having true love in all of our relationships, gle person on earth is made in God’s image.