Our kids seem so smart. Juniors especially plow into academics beginning in the fall, knowing their junior year means so much in applying for college.

Some of us are youth ministers not because of our SATs, but because we have something of a mature faith, a genuine love for kids, we don’t cost the church much, and we were available.

The kids in our youth groups, though, talk about concepts and solve equations that are beyond us; it’s tempting to think we cannot pastor these students. As youth workers, we tell ourselves we should be better than these teenagers in all significant facets of life.

Am I smart enough to pastor these 16-year-old Einsteins?

The task of the youth worker is to reveal the Lord to young people and parents. They don’t pay us to be professors of theology; some of us don’t get paid at all. Jesus worked with young people. He also ran intellectual circles around the educated Pharisees. Jesus was smart. How smart do I have to be?

Your kids are not looking to you for answers on midterms; they are looking to you for an example of authentic Christian faith. We need enough smarts to have faith. We need enough smarts to realize there’s always more faith we need to pursue. We need enough smarts to know the Lord is smart enough.

We need enough smarts to understand our calling. The Lord calls us not to be intellectual, but to trust the One who is smart enough. “The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it” (1Thess. 5:24).

The Lord is smart enough; we never are. The life of faith is not winning on “Jeopardy!” Faith is not mastering trivia, the latest fashion or differential equations. Faith for us youth workers, ushering young people into the stress of another school year, knows the Lord is smart and faithful.

This means we know the Lord provides for every student who worries about getting scores and grades. Study and hard work are necessary, but the rest is up to the Lord. When we live in this faith, we not only are smart enough, but also fulfilling our calling as examples of Christ to the next Einstein.