Stephen...

He asked me if I thought God cared about drugs-- and the fact that he uses and deals them.

I told him yes.

My point wasn't to put Stephen on a guilt trip or to convince him that his behavior was sinful. Stephen knew what he was doing was wrong; I could tell from the conversation that led into his question.

I told him yes, because I think Stephen needed to know that God cares. period. Yes, God cares about that. Why? Because God cares.

So we talked about it. We talked about God having an opinion about our decisions, not so that God can punish us when we make a wrong one, but because God wants us to be whole. We talked about how God doesn't set us up to fail, that God isn't sitting back waiting to see if we're going to make the right decision.

Instead, God gives us the Holy Spirit. God cares about our decisions, and God also guides us in our decisions. God doesn't want His children to do things that leave them broken. God wants us to be whole, and that's why God doesn't leave us to ourselves. The Spirit is with us as we live so that we don't have to be terrified at every turn that we may make some move that is out of God's will. We don't have to guess. We can trust who God is.

By this point in the conversation, we weren't talking about Stephen anymore. We were talking about me. Stephen may not have known it, but that's what was happening. I've been trying to sort through a fairly big decision lately, and I keep having to fight the idea that God has stepped back to wait and see if I'm going to screw it all up. God keeps telling me to trust. I needed that conversation with Stephen to remember who God is.

It's funny how often God ministers to me through my conversations there. God meets me at detention. And I think He wants to meet me everywhere else too.