From Doubt to Faith

At Pine Cove, we have a wide variety of campers from many different of backgrounds. Sometimes that is a camper who waits for Pine Cove year round and loves it more than anything, and other times it’s campers who have never been before and didn’t want to come, have disciplinary problems, have hard home lives, or just plain don’t want to hear about Jesus.

Last week (week 2), we had a camper at the Timbers who told his counselor that he had some desire for relationship with Jesus, but wasn’t a Christian because he had far too much doubt. This was the story for the majority of the week, but he knew an exceptional amount about Jesus and always spoke up in Bible study, he just wasn’t able to get past his doubt.

On Thursday the counselor found that the camper needed discipline for misbehaving. So during free time on Friday, the counselor, camper, and senior counselor picked up rocks around camp. At the end of the discipline time, the senior counselor gave each camper a rock with the word “Unconditional” on it.

By the next morning, the camper had lost his rock, so he and his counselor went looking for it all over the Timbers, which seems futile considering there are a lot of rocks at camp. But as they were looking for it, the counselor was able to have one final conversation with the camper before closing day.

He asked the camper, “What is still holding you back from a relationship with Jesus?” After the camper considered it, he realized that there was nothing holding him back! After coming to this realization, he knew he wanted a relationship with Jesus, so he and his counselor prayed that Jesus would be the Lord of his life, his Savior, and that his sins would be forgiven—and they already were!

So now we have a new brother in Christ! God used what Satan meant for evil and turned it for the camper’s and the counselor’s good, but also for God’s glory and to bring the camper to God himself.

They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:10-11

P.S. They ended up finding his rock. Happy day!