Satan can shove it

Satan, man that dude is tricky. He really knows what he’s doing. How did he get me to forget about grace?! Over the past couple weeks he’s been working pretty hard to show me all the ways I am falling short of the way God wants me to be living, and I’ve been caught up in all the little things I think I’m supposed to be doing: “Oh, I’ve heard about twelve new causes this week and they’re all worthy of being supported, and I think I’ll start sponsoring a child, and I’ll give money to build wells in Africa, and I’ll volunteer at this soup kitchen, and I’ll recycle so I can be ecologically responsible, oh, and I need to pray more, and I should be journaling, and I haven’t counted my blessings yet today, and I need to exercise to take care of this body God gave me, and who have I talked to about God, and…” Of course those are all great things to do, but there is also something to be said for focusing your efforts. Trying to micromanage my own life and turning my relationship into a checklist makes me feel like I’m failing if I don’t get things perfectly every day. Thank God for His grace that is sufficient to transcend my weaknesses and failings.

His grace is sufficient

There is so much of me that strives to be close to God, but at the same time there is so much that pulls away from Him, even fights Him. Tension is always there. And it makes me afraid to learn more about God and what He wants for my life because I know that I’ll find out that I’m still so far away from what He wants me to be. I’ve got to learn to take this journey one day at a time and lean on God to help me grow in Him rather than becoming overwhelmed when I see how far away from Him I still am. His promise is that His grace is enough to cover my inadequacies and that when I draw near to Him, He will in turn draw near to me. He truly is my Savior, my Rock, and my Redeemer.

“From the cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the laziness that is contented with half truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Good Lord, deliver me.”

Make me weaker

My humanity drives me crazy sometimes. I don’t like being weak or feeling like I need to depend on other people. It’s just who I am, it’s how I always have been. I’m not sure if it should be called “independence” and labeled as a good thing, or “arrogance” and labeled as a bad thing. But this weekend whatever it was really hit me in the face. It started when I was kind of blindsided by the fact that real life is coming a lot faster than I had noticed and that I am completely unprepared for it. Required undergrad internship? RD exam? Grad school? Career? I guess those were all things that I knew were going to happen, but they were so far in the future that I didn’t really take them seriously. (Honestly, I’m glad I haven’t thought about it yet. It’s been nice to just enjoy where I’m at and not stress about the future. I would highly recommend it.) But the reality is that those things will all likely be part of my future, and there is a lot to do to prepare for them.

This weekend my family was in town to visit Matthew and me. It was really good to see them, but I was so overwhelmed that it was tough to enjoy the time we had together. I had so much on my mind and was so stressed, but I didn’t want to let go of it or let anyone help me. I just decided to keep it all inside and try to hash it out on my own, and the result was that I was super awful to be around all weekend. Looking back, I can see that I had a perfect opportunity to take advantage of my family being right there to help me work out what was going on, but I was too concerned with dealing with things on my own to see what was right in front of me.

But I can’t stand that part of myself sometimes that wants to curl up in a ball with my head on someone’s lap or have a good cry. My thought is always that other people have such heavier issues than I do and that I need to suck it up and get over myself. And I think sometimes that’s true; I think it would be a little excessive if the little bumps and scrapes of life brought me to tears every day. But on the other hand, Paul says in 2 Corinthians that our Savior’s power is displayed in our weakness. He is able to show His power through the times when I don’t have it all together, when I admit that I can’t do it on my own. I pray that God would grant me the humility to accept help and to ask for it when I need it. My weakness is all for His glory.

In awe

Usually at Sanctuary (our Thursday night worship service) everybody is on their feet the whole time, just excited to be praising God together. But tonight as we were singing about how God is indescribable, uncontainable, all-powerful, unchangeable, how He has placed the stars in the sky and how the earth will shake at Jesus’ return, I wondered how I could possibly stand on my feet in front of such a powerful and awesome God. I sat down in my chair, convicted of my unworthiness to stand in God’s presence, His holiness beyond comparison with my brokenness. I don’t understand why God loves me and continues to pursue me in spite of my pride and selfishness and all of the times I put what I want in front of what He wants. I am so unworthy of being in His presence, yet He loves me so much more than I can even know. I cannot help but be changed by that knowledge. I cannot help but give Him everything.

...those who persecute you?

Last night while I was praying before bed it came to my mind Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. So I started to do just that. And it didn’t take very long. I realized I couldn’t really think of any direct enemies or sources of persecution in my own life. Sure, America has its enemies, but mostly because we’re a major world power, not because our country is standing up for Christ in the face of opposition. I just can’t think of any for myself in particular. Jesus’ imperative to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us implies that there is a likelihood of there being people out there who won’t like what we’re doing, that we’re going against the grain and bringing light to places that have long been in the dark. The fact that I can’t think of any persecution toward myself makes me wonder, am I really going all out for Christ?

Trust me

God has been showing His beautiful face in my life in so many ways. Maybe I’m just looking harder for Him. But I’m falling so in love with Him, I can’t deny it. The joy that comes with being in relationship with Him is my sustaining power as life picks up its pace.

I keep coming into contact with the importance of trust. Do I trust God to do what He says He will do, that He will reign in the world and that He will lay out a path for me? Do I believe that He can take my imperfect self and do something momentous, or do I insist that there are certain mountains that simply cannot be moved? More and more I am being convinced that God is putting certain opportunities in my way, ones that I would normally be afraid to jump into, and convicting me that He certainly is big enough to do His work. Here I am, sitting in my closet, just one person in a sea of humanity. But God works through the weak, through those who have nothing to offer, and Lord knows both of those apply to me. Here I am, Lord. Send me. I put all my trust in You.

Oops...

It’s amazing how easily I forget about what’s really important. When I was in Honduras it was so crucial for me to spend time reading my Bible and feeding myself spiritually because I didn’t have anything else to fill me up. I was so aware of how necessary Jesus was to complete me. Then I came home and was back with all of my friends and family and back in my comfort zone where it was easy for me to feel fulfilled by those people and environments. When I left Honduras one of the things I could have told you was so important in my life and something that I had learned to do so much better since being there was spending time daily reading the Bible and talking to God. But when I got back all of that seemed to fall by the wayside because of that false sense of fulfillment that came with all being back in my comfort zone. I didn’t need Jesus when I had my friends and family around me. Oh, how quickly I forget. Once you get out of those habits it’s so difficult to get back into them, just like when you don’t exercise for a long time and then you’re out of shape and it just sucks trying to get past the soreness and back to the point when you feel strong and healthy. Now I’m at that point where I feel spiritually out of shape and am trying to get over the hump and back into the habit of being spiritually disciplined. It really is a discipline and takes repetition and practice and diligence and will power to get right. But just like the memory of how good it felt to be in shape is enough to make me want to start exercising again, the memory of how wonderful it feels to have Jesus at the forefront of my life and always in my thoughts and the master of my days is enough to make me want to get back to that point. And I won’t waste any time.