Read: Colossians 3

I’ve been pondering the phrase ‘new life’. I can remember how excited I was when I first became a Christian at having a ‘new life’. I was 13 and there was a lot about my old life I didn’t like!

I lived in a household where there were often arguments. I went to a school that always expected more from me than I felt able to achieve. I lived in fear that a nuclear bomb would be dropped and I’d be annihilated … but what would happen when I died? Was that the end? Was there a God?

I had so many big questions. But for me at 13, I also had a new identity. I knew I was loved beyond measure and Jesus was calling me into a purposeful life. But that was only the start. I then had to learn how to live as a Christian.

A lovely lady called Pam spent hours helping me to make my life’s choices. God allowed me to choose how I behaved but, over time, his new ways became my way. Pam was just ‘there’. I’d call at her house on my way home from school, where there was always tea and cake, a listening ear for my questions, and wisdom that always pointed me to the Bible.

As we share God’s love with children and young people around us, it’s really important to go beyond the initial excitement of that first choice to follow Jesus and point all new Christians to places and especially people like my old friend Pam – or Paul the letter-writer to the Colossians – who will help them know the lifestyle choices God asks of them.

In fact, my prayer is that I’ll become a Paul or a Pam figure for young people I know.