Being God's Instrument: Role Models

If you think way back into your past (hopefully you don’t have to think too far back for this one), who was your role model? Who did you look up to, to teach you how to carry yourself, how to act, maybe even how to feel? I have had many, many role models in my life, not the least important being my Mother and my teachers. However, I have had two definite role models that have helped shape me and mold me into who I am today, whether they know it or not. And whether they know it or not, I still look up to them and find guidance, even when they’re not trying to give it.

My first major role model is my sister, Tina. I have learned from her how to be confident, and sure of myself. I have learned how to take life for all it’s got and to push myself to go the extra mile. I can have anything I want, and I can be anyone I want. Nothing can stop me. I think she taught me how to be a real woman. I just wish I could be as focused as she is! My other major role model (outside the family) is my mentor (from when I was still in the Youth Group), Mindy…and I hope she doesn’t mind having her name on here. Mindy has taught me what true beauty is, and where I need to find my worth. I have learned through her how to thoroughly and constantly search for God. I know that, even on my bad days, I am worth more than anyone could ever offer to pay, and more than any man can promise to give me. I love them and respect them both. I am very grateful that God put them in my life.

Knowing how much my “mentors” have meant to me, I have to think about my role as a mentor. Whether we know it or not, someone is always looking up to us. We are teaching even when we don’t know it. Someone may be watching our every move, watching how we react to certain circumstances, how we treat others, how we treat God, etc . . . It may be a younger sibling, it may be one of the kids at church, or a younger student at school. When someone looks up to you and respects you that much, you have to be so careful about how you carry yourself. They are so eager to learn from you, that every move you make will have an effect on them.

This summer I am starting a ministry for the teen girls at my church. We will be looking at the book Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy (ladies, if you haven’t read this, please do). I am so excited to teach girls what I have learned from my mentors. Beauty comes from the inside out. A beautiful heart and spirit make a beautiful person. And we can achieve this beauty by our love and worship for Christ . . . if we wholeheartedly follow after Him, and make Him our real and true Prince. I feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to share what I have learned with these girls, to be able to teach them how to find real worth in a world that finds worth only in material items and sexual pleasure. I hope to be able to help them feel confident in who God has made them, because that is what my mentors helped me to be able to do.

Although not all of us have the opportunity to sit down and talk to those who may look up to us for guidance, we can communicate the important things in other ways. Just by pure body language one can tell whether or not someone is confident in themselves. By the way we talk to others one can tell whether we respect others or if we love God. Maybe you want to have a “little sister.” I don’t know what it may be for you . . . but you are already a role model, whether you know it or not. You can use this for God’s glory, or you can ignore the fact that you are impacting someone else’s life. But I hope you won’t ignore it, you can be God’s instrument to help the youth in today’s confusing and destructive world.




"You may speak but a word to a child, and in that child there may be slumbering a noble heart which shall stir the Christian Church in years to come."
-Charles Spurgeon

"The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve."
-John Stott

"Train up a fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it."
-Charles Dickens

"The most important single influence in the life of a person is another person ... who is worthy of emulation."
- Paul D. Shafer