IT as experienced in our high school age youth group

We had 8 visitors from B's group at Youth Group last night. The topic was IT: one ingrediant of those who have IT is Focus. Zacheus was the example our Beloved leader shared from scripture. Basically Zacheus climbed a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus. He was short so he needed to be up above the crows to see him. Jesus sees him and says Zacheus come down from there, For tonight I am eating at your house. We think the crowd was angry and jealous when Jesus did that. Then zacheus promises to give away all the money he has and to anyone that he cheated he would pay 4 times the amount back to them.
Do you believe him? We were mostly in disbelief except two sisters; they were trusting that he meant it. One young lady said she thought Zacheus was sucking up to Jesus, so she was ticked at him.
Jesus told zacheus that today salvation had come to his house. Zacheus got IT. He had IT.He turned his life over to the will of Jesus. HUMM!
So our beloved Youth Leader put B, P and C in the hot seat to answer questions about their challenge last week; $50 for making the 65 foot shot from the opposite free throw line. Of course the guys were secretly eating up the attention. They answered with focus as part of their response so Our leader was happy. He also pointed out the support that C and P gave to B while he struggled to make it. He was proud of them for that. Then we broke into groups and talked about what makes us lose focus and what we can do to overcome it.
I was impressed with my group. They talked about losing focus on their faith. Out of all the things in life that we can lose focus on - they talked about faith. It is so refreshing that they are actually taking their relationship seriously. So they struggle with time comittments and priorities. They talked about parental pressure to do the religous things like devotions and prayers; how that makes them want to rebel and not do it. The hardest thing was the question of how to overcome it. One shared that she was always talking to Jesus and that she felt that it was just a part of her day. She swims and is really active so she has every bit the challange but she incorporated her relationship into her every day things.
WOW!!
Hope this was not too long. My goal is to let you see a glimpse of the group, hopefully without too much of my commentary so that you can feel connected still.
Next week is labor day so we have no youth group.