Be a responsible mentor

In this episode, we reflect on the call to become a responsible mentor and a God-ordained pathfinder for others.

Drawing from Isaiah 40:3–5, 2 Corinthians 1:3–4, Isaiah 43:19, and Hebrews 12:1, this message shows how God can use our lives, experiences, comfort, and lessons to help others find direction, clarity, and strength. The comfort we have received from God is not meant to end with us; it becomes a ministry through us.

This episode is a call to live with greater responsibility, knowing that someone may be learning from your life, drawing courage from your example, and finding a road through their wilderness because of the way you follow God.

May your life become a worthy example, a source of comfort, and a prepared path through which others encounter the glory of the Lord.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

What God helped you survive may become the pathway through which others learn how to walk. Good morning and welcome to this episode of Uniting Your Day with Amy Delhi or Lona Toba. The Lord has been speaking to me about being a responsible mentor. I do not know who exactly is in that situation right now. Someone who wants to be a responsible mentor, but I know that all of us must begin to prepare for it. If you have not started mentoring someone, you should begin to look forward to mentoring someone. At the very least, if nobody has come to you yet asking to be mentored, you will have children, younger people or people around you who will learn from your life. I've been engaged on this since yesterday, being a responsible mentor. Maybe there are young men, young women, older men, or older women coming to you, looking to you as a pathfinder in certain areas of life. We need to uphold ourselves in prayer so that we will do well by the people who have trusted us. We must pray that we will do well by those who have trusted us with access to their lives. The first place I was led to in scripture is Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3 to 5. Isaiah 40 is a message of comfort, but within that message of comfort, there is also an instruction. It speaks of how Israel was to prepare the way for the king. We can look at it in two ways. First, Israel preparing the way for the Lord who is the King. Second, we can relate it to what John the Baptist did concerning Jesus. Now, John the Baptist did not mentor Jesus, but John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus Christ. If we take advantage of this passage as a prophetic application, we can see how a mentor is supposed to prepare the way for a mentee. Let's read. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3 to 5. It says, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places soft. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Friends, when you look at these three verses, you can see what a mentor is supposed to offer a mentee. You can see what a mentee is supposed to gain from someone God has commissioned to lead them. The Bible says, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. If we apply this to the relationship between the mentor and the mentee, we may not always know the exact headspace of the mentee, but as a mentor, you are saddled with the responsibility of helping your mentee see how things that once looked impossible can become possible. The Bible says to make straight in the desert. The desert is a place where there is no clear path. It is a place without a defined route. But as one God has commissioned to lead the way, you can create a customized path for those who are following you. Verse 4 says, Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low. Friends, by virtue of your experience, you can help make irregularities regular. By virtue of your knowledge, you can fill gaps. By virtue of what God has taught you, you can help what once looked crooked become understandable, reasonable, and workable. The passage continues. Then verse 5 says, The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. At the end of the day, friends, the goal is that the Lord will be glorified in the life of the person you're mentoring. The goal is that the Lord will be glorified through the outcomes of their life. I do not know who has trusted you with their life. I do not know who is looking forward to you being a pathfinder for them in life and in righteousness. But we must trust God that his glory will be revealed in their lives and that everyone who sees them will see the glory of the Lord upon them. Yes. Let me ask you, why is this consideration today important? This is important to me personally because where I am today is also the result of good mentorship. I am where I am today because there are people who stood, there are people who sacrificed, there are people who made themselves an honorable pathway for me to get to where I am today. That also means I owe it to the next generation to be a responsible mentor. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3 to 4 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Do you see the principle there? We are comforted so that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfort we have received from God. I can clearly say that where I am today is a result of good mentorship. What I am able to achieve today is a result of good mentorship. If people did not take their lives, make sacrifices, ignore how they were feeling, and ensure that young people like me could stand and keep my head straight, I will not have been able to get to where I am today. In the same way, I also have to overlook how I am feeling to ensure that the next generation has a profitable life in the things of God. I have to make sure that those coming after me see a worthy example in me for the proper formation of their present and future lives. This is important. Becoming a responsible mentor is important, not just because of yourself, but because of those who are coming after you. As you have been blessed, you must become a blessing to others. Of the comfort you have received, you must comfort others. I do not know how many people are crying out right now for someone to lead them and show them the way. I do not know how many people desire someone who can tell them, do this, do not do that. Go here, do not go there. Pay attention to this, be careful with that. The Bible speaks about our teachers not being hidden from us. We must pray that the Lord will make us a blessing to other people. We must pray that we will become part of the reason why others get it right in life. I pray for you this morning. May people be able to point to you as one of the reasons they did not make a mistake in life. I pray for you this morning. May people be able to point to you as one of the reasons they were able to find and fulfill purpose in life in the name of Jesus. Among many other things, friends, one thing a mentor can do for a mentee is to help them make sense of their current circumstances. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3 says, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. I do not know how many people around you are trying to make sense of their current situations. I do not know how many people around you are trying to understand the things they are going through while life seems to bombard them from every side. We must declare that the Lord will make us a help. By your life, someone may not even need to come to you directly. There can be something about your life that becomes help to somebody else. Something about your life can become an indication of help. Somebody can learn something simply by looking at your life. I have mentioned this before that many years ago while I was growing up, I heard there was a church close to my house where every morning at 6 a.m. people gathered to pray. I will hear them praying in the spirit and I would wonder, what are they doing in that place? I was already born again, but I wondered what manner of devotion that was. I wondered what manner of consistency that was. I never joined them, but that thing sank into me. It formed something inside me. Today I give God praise because even though nobody told me to join them, and even though I never went to join them, when I look at some of the things I'm doing today, I can honestly say that observation formed something in my life. That is why we must pray that by virtue of the way we live, something about our lives will be a blessing to someone else. Isaiah says, make street in the desert a highway for our God. Many people coming after you. I pray they will be able to make sense of their lives by looking at your life in the name of Jesus. There are many things you are going through right now that you may not be able to explain, but I can tell you that some of those things are so that you can have worthy examples to share with those who God will allow you to lead. In other words, some of the things you are going through today are not only for you. Some of the things you are going through today are for those coming after you. They are for those looking up to you to help them. They are for those looking up to you to be a pathfinder. They are for those who will one day need your leadership in life. There are things God allows you to go through today that are not particularly for you alone. They are for the people you will mentor. They are for the people you will lead. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 4 says, Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain shall be brought low, the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. Your experience and your knowledge can become the gap fillers for other people's lives. Those things you experienced, even in unfavorable circumstances, can become valley fillers in the lives of those looking up to you. Why don't you declare that all your experiences will become valuable for those coming after you in the name of Jesus? There is nothing you have gone through in life that will not eventually be of value. Romans chapter 8, verse 28 reminds us that all things work together for good. Every experience you have, every lesson you have learned, and every knowledge you have gained can become valuable to those coming behind you. Some of the things you call failures today may become experience for mentoring others tomorrow. All your experiences are valuable, friends. They are valuable for making crooked places straight and rough places smooth for those coming after you, those looking up to you, and those trusting God for your leadership in their lives. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 5 says, The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. You must declare today, I must declare today by that by virtue of our leadership, the glory of the Lord will be revealed in the lives of those who follow us in the name of Jesus. The goal of mentorship is not to make people dependent on us, the goal is not to draw attention to ourselves, the goal is that the glory of the Lord will be revealed in their lives. May the glory of the Lord be revealed in the lives of those who follow you in the name of Jesus. I also read Isaiah chapter 43, verse 19. It says, Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. There is something insightful in this verse for us. I do not know how many people are following you who feel like they are in the wilderness, but you can pray that as a result of your leadership in their lives, roads will be made in their wilderness. Nobody should believe in you and fail to see value in the leadership you offer. Nobody should trust your leadership and remain without light in their darkness. Nobody should believe in you and while they are in a wilderness fail to find a road. That is not how it should be. I pray this morning that may the Lord help you so that by virtue of your leadership, roads will be made for people in the wilderness of their lives. May your leadership create unique value that brings solutions into their lives. May your leadership produce desirable and godly solutions for those who follow you in the name of Jesus. Even if you are in a secular space, there may be people looking forward to learning one or two things from you. Declare that your leadership will bring value, clarity, and solutions into their lives in the name of Jesus. May you indeed be a light to them in the name of Jesus. Finally, let's look at Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. The Bible says, Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. There is a powerful insight here. When you consider that there have been people who did well and went ahead of you, it becomes necessary to watch the quality of your own life. The scripture says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. That means there are lives that have gone before us whose examples should call us into responsibility. Why don't you pray this morning that your life will be a good example? Pray that your life will be a worthy example. May the quality of your life become a good model for those coming behind you. Whatever space they are in, may your life minister to them. May your life teach them. May your life pass on insight for their own lives in the name of Jesus. In closing friends, becoming a responsible mentor is not only about giving advice, it's about living in such a way that your life becomes a pathway, a witness, a comfort, and a model for others. Let the comfort you have received become comfort for others. Let the lessons you have learned become clarity for others. Let the valleys you have survived become wisdom for others. Let the wilderness you have walked through become a road for others. Let the quality of your life become a worthy example for those coming after you. May you be an excellent God-ordained pathfinder for everyone who believes in you. May crooked paths be made straight for those who follow you. May rough places be made smooth. May roads be made in wilderness places. And above all, may the glory of the Lord be revealed in their lives. In Jesus' name. Amen. I believe you have been blessed by what you heard this morning. Do well to share this with somebody you know who is mentoring other people. And I pray for you today, your life will never remain the same again.