Have you ever had a student tell you, “That’s not fair!”? I sure have. Plenty of times! A student smokes and you handle him differently than you did the last student who smoked. Why?
Children raised in the same family with the same parents usually have completely different personalities. Even identical twins have different personalities, interests, and gifts. There are no two of us alike. We are all different. We have different life-experiences; different ways of processing those life-experiences. And God gives us all different gifts and personality characteristics. To which I say, “Thank you Lord!”

Because we are all different, what challenges one person, will repel another. A word of correction to one person causes them to become angry, ready to fight. The exact same word of correction will cause another person to cry. Because we are all different, we need to be dealt with differently. God knows us. He knows our hearts. He knows the specific needs of each individual and how to deal with us. He knows our past. He knows our future. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I love the message of Acts 17:26-27:

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;” (NKJ)

Here is the message I see in this passage: God knew the best time and place for you to be born to have the best chances of finding Him. I would say He knows us pretty well! God treats us all as individuals. He convicts us differently. He guides us differently.

So it is with us and our Teen Challenge students. So, like Acts 17:26-27 our goal should be to help our students find and connect to God. And for each student that will look a little different. We must seek to work in conjunction with the Holy Spirit as He works in the lives of our students. We need to be attuned to the varying spiritual state, attitudes and personalities and deal with them accordingly.  We should not have a cookie cutter response for every situation with every student!

And from other students that will often appear “unfair”.

Side note: We’ve all struggled with the “unfair” in life. We look around and see people seemingly more blessed than us. David sure did; just read the Psalms!