By: Chef Dashi
“Mentoring is to walk alongside them on their faith journey to a deeper level and to personal wholeness.” (Second Level Ministry)
Mentoring is like ‘wings’. ‘ It is an opportunity to ‘recognize and take advantage of the fact that you have wings.’ Suppose there is a bird that does not know it has wings and believes it cannot fly. Mentoring is like telling such a bird, “You have wings, you can fly.
When the wrong self-image or the wrong image of God that has been trapped before salvation is corrected and we know the truth, we can receive the blessings that God is trying to give us and walk in them. There will be times when you are saved but not filled with joy. There will be times when you are not free from worry. There may be times when you have dark thoughts without answers as to why you are living in suffering. When you firmly accept the truth of the Word of God and truly make it your own, you will be able to experience God’s power. You can accept any kind of person you are. You will learn to forgive any person. You will experience joy no matter what your circumstances. You will be able to practice what the Word of God teaches you to do.
Those who have experienced mentoring in the past have described it as follows.
-A chance to deepen your fellowship with God
-A time of insight and guidance into biblical values and the Christian life
-A relationship that gives you confidence that you are saved and loved by God
-The process of knowing and experiencing more deeply our identity in Christ
-Training to be able to see yourself from God’s perspective
-Checking and course correction of spiritual health
-When the spiritual thirst is satisfied and the body and mind move toward health
-When we can have true fellowship through sharing and praying for each other
-Time to stop, reflect on one’s steps, and move forward again
– A time to stop getting stuck in a rut in our life of faith and reaffirm that we are on the path of growth, and so on
Living a life of faith alone is often fraught with attacks, and it is easy to fall prey to doubt and deception. Through the opportunity of mentoring, you will know that you have been given wings and be convinced of the truth of the Word that you can live in salvation in Christ!
In actual mentoring, sometimes we focus on Bible study, sometimes we spend time as prayer partners, and often we focus on conversation and sharing our faith and lives. We grow in maturity in Christ and in wholeness when we are involved in the mentoring process; either being mentored or being a mentor to someone else. This is the way that God has designed it as Jesus is constantly mentoring and showing us how to live the life that he wants us to live. It should be the same that we mentor and be mentored by others as well.