What happens when you look at someone you Love and realize you don't know them? With a marriage, a friendship, or a relationship it often means that they're over or that really hard times are ahead if both are willing to work through them.
What about our walk with Christ? What happens when we find out that how we've been pursuing God is off course, how we think we understand His Love is flawed, or what you've always held as His desire is only your own idea of what God wants? It's a hard question and one I've wrestled through this past week.
What makes you feel furthest from God? Is it pain, is it loss, is it being wrong, or something else? I know that for me I feel furthest form God when I come face-to-face with the truth that I don't know God. I don't know how He Loves unconditionally. I don't understand His plan for me. I don't, I just don't some times and it's then that I feel like I'm a million miles away from Him. How can He be close to me when I struggle so much to give myself to Him, to know the one I profess to Love? The answer is one that takes time to come to.
I found out this week that I still want to serve God how I have planned. Crazy huh? Think I would have realized after almost four years of Him tossing out every plan I've made and finding new ones that I'd finally realize He can and will use me anywhere! Yeah, I thought I would too by now, but it's a lot harder while you're in the valleys to believe something you've seen on the mountain tops. Not impossible, but very hard.
I was faced this week with how honestly bad I am at what I always thought I was gifted with and good at. Feedback about my skills, desires, and passions that say, "You're par at best and generally sub-par." It's discouraging. How am I supposed to use my gifts for God's glory when they aren't anything special? What am I supposed to surrender to God when I have nothing of value? How do I live my life for Him when I am lost and confused? How do I serve Him when what I honestly believed I was called to serve Him with is pulled away from me and I am left with a fear that I won't be of use to Him? That's been this week.
Now that I am at my lowest, now that I am broken, where does God take me? He doesn't build me up (big surprise), He doesn't remind me that He will use my gifts despite how poor they are right now. He didn't tell me to trust that He's bigger than my problems or that He was trying to get me to let go of myself. Instead He held out a hand. I was puzzled and didn't understand. I took hold and tried to pull myself up but He didn't let me pull myself up. I was confused! Why wasn't He there to rescue me? He smiled, It's not time for Him to rescue me. He was inviting me to walk with Him. I took His hand again and instead of pulling me up He came into step with me.
We walked through the valley together a while before I finally asked, "What do you want from me?" I was nearly losing it. I was of no use to Him and after so many times of picking me up and setting my focus straight He wasn't going to do it again. He looked steadily at me and said, "You."
I shake my head, frustration rising, "That's the problem! I keep giving you everything I can, but it never seems to do anything and I keep coming back to where I was." By the end I was nearly in tears. At that point I was kneeling in a room by myself crying out to God and lost while He was walking right beside me.
He kept walking with me and slowly my gaze was drawn to a book that is constantly close to me. It is called My Utmost for His Highest. It is a devotional by Oswald Chambers that I read every day. Over the past week it has been speaking very powerful truth into my life that has been something I've clung to in the midst of the uncertainty of this past week. If you are struggling with the same kind of feelings I would recommend look at the entries from October 20th till today, they can be found here. It was today's entry that really turned this week around.
This morning, God was still walking with me in the valley. I was wondering if He had gotten tired of walking with me in here. Was He tired of me still struggling? Was He bored with how often I turned to Him? But He didn't answer. So this morning I was reading My Utmost to His Highest and as my eyes followed the words on the page He reached over my shoulder and pointed to the words. I paid close attention and that's when it all fell into place. It said that our purpose is behind us. That we are not seeking and saving the lost. That's not what missions is about. Missions is not about the people, as much as that sounds so wrong! I have been rebelling inside against what I've been reading all week and looking back I am seeing that's why I was where I was at.
So what is the focus of missions? The focus is God. Well, that's the church answer, but in reality God cares about people so we need to focus on people because that is focusing on God. Wrong. We are not saving people because they are so important, that diminishes God's glory and the fact that it is only Him who calls the lost and only Him who can do anything. And once we start focusing on people we lose the one who called us, as Chambers puts it, "He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way." Wow. In my frailties He will use me? I just need to let Him? Yes.
And that is why it's so hard! Letting Him do with us what He wills is so...passive. Passivity is roundly denounced by everyone today. Passivity is equated with laziness, sluggishness, and even sinfulness. But not with God, we mess things up when we try to "proactively accomplish His will". The end of today's devotion talks about great men and women of faith and how we credit them with keen intelligence to understand God's plan, but in reality, "...the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment." That hit home. I used to wait for God's guidance in my life as He would lay what He wanted of me in my path and I would walk that path in faith. This semester has been time and time again of me trying to do things I decided were what God wanted. In the end He has blessed those ventures, but I can clearly see that they are just my interpretations of what God wants, not actually waiting for Him.
What now? Well, I am climbing now. God has shown me the way to the next mountain top and I am pushing onward! I know once I reach the top I'll be headed either quickly or slowly back into another valley, but as Oswald Chambers says over and over again, it is not who we are on the mountain tops that reflects our walk with God but who we are in the valley that reflects who we are with God. That being said, I am not being spurred on by a goal ahead of me that I need to reach people, Love them, and bring Christ to them. I am spurred on by a God behind me that has my back, is worthy of sacrificing my life for, and will lay the path before me He wants me to walk. I don't need to strive to discern His will, struggle finding the purpose for my life, or worry about what's before me. I just have to have that childlike faith that is, "'foolish' enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment." He is the reason for everything I do. And when I realize that again, He suddenly shows me how to lay down myself and follow Him. I also realize I will be laying down myself for the rest of my life, but I will gladly do so for so great a God!
Being Foolish for Him,
~Joshua
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Coming Full Circle
I have come full circle.
An expression that is often used. It usually means completion, but for me it means beginning. Go back to last year, at the beginning of the the semester. I had gotten into my first relationship and my life was headed for a lot of change. But to set this up, I need to do a bit of backstory...
I grew up in a great home. I may not have liked it then and I may feel that something was missing now, but my parents loved me and raised me well. As for me, I am someone who once I get an idea I hold it very firmly until something comes along that can sway me to let go of that idea and look for a new one. So, growing up I got a lot of my values, a lot of my habits, and a lot of my beliefs from my parents, from what they taught me, exemplified for me, and disciplined into me.
When I first left home and went to college, I held onto these beliefs to help me navigate my way through a foreign and scary new environment. I had those beliefs challenged, shocked, or reinforced through that first year and I started to make them my own, but only my beliefs. How I acted, who I was, stayed the same. College challenged where I stood on things, not how I was raised or how I decided to live. That started last year.
Until last year I had never dated anyone. Until then I had never stepped outside my social bubble. Doing both has done a number on how I live, how I view life, and my personal compass. I have come face-to-face with people who view life totally different than I do. I knew plenty of people did, but when I actually got to see why they did, what caused them to view life the way they did, I started to lose the ground I stood on. My faith and morals that had been reinforced my whole life and shored up by caring parents were starting to crumble without the help I had been provided while at home. Over the course of a year major parts of each were put to the test and refined in fire.
The first to go was my giving. Now I'm not talking at church, but in my own life. I had an RA my freshman year who had a personal code that I greatly respect. If anyone saw a shirt on him they liked or a hoodie or something and asked for it, he'd give it to them. Just like that! Going into college I enjoy giving to others. Money, my time, any possessions I had were someone else's if they needed them! I enjoyed it, it was fun! But over the past year I have started getting stingier. I have held onto my stuff more, hoarding it away. I kept my money and didn't want to be open handed with it because I had to "think about the future." I have traveled the whole year getting worse and worse until God finally stopped me and made me make a decision. It ended with me getting rid of many things I had. They were simply things, and yet I let them get between me and my walk with God. So I gave away some of my prize possessions to those I knew would appreciate and use them. I am still letting go of a lot of my stuff, my money, and my time. I haven't gotten back to where I was, but I am come back around to where I started...
Next was reading the Bible. Since sophomore year I have been reading my Bible every day. It started intermittently and soon it became an everyday occasion because of how much I Loved to read it! I read it with an excitement and passion and I would spend time in it. Over the past year that has gone from exciting to almost ritualistic. It has slowly turned into something I just do, instead of celebrating a gift God's given me. That changed today actually. Chapel today was amazing and God reached down and spoke to me, saying, "This has become a ritual to you. One you enjoy, but one that has lost its passion for you." I realized He was right(always is :P ). And I have spent a lot of time praying earnestly today and He's re-sparking that passion for the gift He's given me!
The biggest one has probably been my future. Coming into college I trusted entirely on God to guide my steps, overcome what obstacles would rise in my path, and to give me strength when I was empty. The past year has slowly deconstructed that. Planning for the future, worrying about after college, wondering what I'm going to use my degree for, and many other things have doggedly drawn my eyes away from following God's guidance in the everyday that I may be in His will for the long haul! He's still working on me with that one. I am starting to look ahead--something He's called me to do--but I am no longer worrying about how He's going to use where He's put me. He's brought me here for a reason, and I know He has a plan for it in the future.
These are just three major ones. There are others, but through them all He is bringing me full circle. He is taking what was once blindly trusted in and turning it into something I can build upon; Him and Him alone. It's not been an easy process and there has been many hard times because of it, but His plans for the future are still leaving me in shock as I can only blink in awe at what He has planned :] I believe all of us undergo a testing of our foundations and what matters to us. And after the fire has cleansed the dross, we will stand before him as pure gold, ready for Him to work into a masterpiece! This is the beginning of another chapter, one built on Him and not what I've been taught.
In God's Flames,
Joshua
An expression that is often used. It usually means completion, but for me it means beginning. Go back to last year, at the beginning of the the semester. I had gotten into my first relationship and my life was headed for a lot of change. But to set this up, I need to do a bit of backstory...
I grew up in a great home. I may not have liked it then and I may feel that something was missing now, but my parents loved me and raised me well. As for me, I am someone who once I get an idea I hold it very firmly until something comes along that can sway me to let go of that idea and look for a new one. So, growing up I got a lot of my values, a lot of my habits, and a lot of my beliefs from my parents, from what they taught me, exemplified for me, and disciplined into me.
When I first left home and went to college, I held onto these beliefs to help me navigate my way through a foreign and scary new environment. I had those beliefs challenged, shocked, or reinforced through that first year and I started to make them my own, but only my beliefs. How I acted, who I was, stayed the same. College challenged where I stood on things, not how I was raised or how I decided to live. That started last year.
Until last year I had never dated anyone. Until then I had never stepped outside my social bubble. Doing both has done a number on how I live, how I view life, and my personal compass. I have come face-to-face with people who view life totally different than I do. I knew plenty of people did, but when I actually got to see why they did, what caused them to view life the way they did, I started to lose the ground I stood on. My faith and morals that had been reinforced my whole life and shored up by caring parents were starting to crumble without the help I had been provided while at home. Over the course of a year major parts of each were put to the test and refined in fire.
The first to go was my giving. Now I'm not talking at church, but in my own life. I had an RA my freshman year who had a personal code that I greatly respect. If anyone saw a shirt on him they liked or a hoodie or something and asked for it, he'd give it to them. Just like that! Going into college I enjoy giving to others. Money, my time, any possessions I had were someone else's if they needed them! I enjoyed it, it was fun! But over the past year I have started getting stingier. I have held onto my stuff more, hoarding it away. I kept my money and didn't want to be open handed with it because I had to "think about the future." I have traveled the whole year getting worse and worse until God finally stopped me and made me make a decision. It ended with me getting rid of many things I had. They were simply things, and yet I let them get between me and my walk with God. So I gave away some of my prize possessions to those I knew would appreciate and use them. I am still letting go of a lot of my stuff, my money, and my time. I haven't gotten back to where I was, but I am come back around to where I started...
Next was reading the Bible. Since sophomore year I have been reading my Bible every day. It started intermittently and soon it became an everyday occasion because of how much I Loved to read it! I read it with an excitement and passion and I would spend time in it. Over the past year that has gone from exciting to almost ritualistic. It has slowly turned into something I just do, instead of celebrating a gift God's given me. That changed today actually. Chapel today was amazing and God reached down and spoke to me, saying, "This has become a ritual to you. One you enjoy, but one that has lost its passion for you." I realized He was right(always is :P ). And I have spent a lot of time praying earnestly today and He's re-sparking that passion for the gift He's given me!
The biggest one has probably been my future. Coming into college I trusted entirely on God to guide my steps, overcome what obstacles would rise in my path, and to give me strength when I was empty. The past year has slowly deconstructed that. Planning for the future, worrying about after college, wondering what I'm going to use my degree for, and many other things have doggedly drawn my eyes away from following God's guidance in the everyday that I may be in His will for the long haul! He's still working on me with that one. I am starting to look ahead--something He's called me to do--but I am no longer worrying about how He's going to use where He's put me. He's brought me here for a reason, and I know He has a plan for it in the future.
These are just three major ones. There are others, but through them all He is bringing me full circle. He is taking what was once blindly trusted in and turning it into something I can build upon; Him and Him alone. It's not been an easy process and there has been many hard times because of it, but His plans for the future are still leaving me in shock as I can only blink in awe at what He has planned :] I believe all of us undergo a testing of our foundations and what matters to us. And after the fire has cleansed the dross, we will stand before him as pure gold, ready for Him to work into a masterpiece! This is the beginning of another chapter, one built on Him and not what I've been taught.
In God's Flames,
Joshua
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