Trust When Hope Gives Way

I've written this specific blog probably three or four times. I've been away from home for 36 days and counting. In that time I have been out of my culture, comfort, and occasionally mind. This specific positioning, as many of you know, is the perfect combination for God to do big things in one's life. Even more than these "big things" God will take you into deeper understanding of truths every Christian knows. The one I want to focus on is trust and how interconnected it is with our hopes.

Trusting God with everything means so much more when he begins to take your hopes and closes the door on them. 

Trust is so easy when God's plan aligns with your hopes. Coming into this three-and-a-half month long journey I knew that at the end was awaiting huge questions: What will I do after I graduate? Where will I live? Will I even live in the US? What passions should I bind myself to? I left having complete trust that God was going to answer those questions or at least give me peace about next steps. However, what I was not expecting was for subconscious hopes in what those next steps could be to be taken away. 

While God did this I had so many realizations. The first is how hard a heart can be in it's hopes. A picture I learned through was watching African women digging up soil with a hoe. That was what was happening to my heart. I was being hacked into, turned inside out, and weeded out. I was so frustrated. I didn't understand how there could still be places in my heart that I hadn't let God work in. He has done this process before how could there possibly be any more hard places? What more could he possibly take? (bad attitude I know) Did I mention how bad it hurts? God was literally splitting desires in me. Desires to hold onto hopes and even greater desires to be changed into what God pictured. This breaking apart of my heart isn't isolated to just spiritual or emotional pain. When your very heart and hopes are being shifted and broken everything hurts. I can recall nights just sitting and crying because I was so physically in pain as my flesh was desperately trying to hold onto control, onto hope in something other than God, hoping that my plan was also his. I didn't understand how some of my dreams could survive without the hopes God had taken. I know that God doesn't have to follow my expected A leads to B leads to C...etc. I know it, but when you place your hope in a plan and God starts diverting it panic ensues. 

BUT God is still faithful. After the crying and the numerous "Why, why, why" questions my hand that has clasped all of these hopes and dreams began to soften and open. God lovingly took them and reminded me he is worthy of trust. He called me to realign my trust in his voice alone. Though I was (and still am) blind, weak, and exhausted from fighting for my hopes I fell on his chest and trusted. I trusted that only He could possibly revive me from this mess. Only he could take me where I need to go and give me the strength to do it. Then the joy came and I could move forward with the anticipation that God was about to do something even greater. From sacrifice comes pain, from pain comes comfort and trust, and when I finally trusted I was stretched to a greater capacity to do the process all over again. 

These days I've been finding so much comfort in 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, "We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." Whenever I am tempted to focus on what I've lost I just focus on this verse. I have dedicated my life to work by faith, labor in love, and more specific to this post: have steadfast hope in the Lord. When I remind myself of that, petty dreams fall away, and I know I'm doing the right thing. 

Motives

Week 1 Revisited: December 28, 2014 - January 3, 2015

Has my desire for growth and greatness in Christ turned into a desire to be great in others eyes and in ministry?

This is a question I have to grapple with often. If I were to be completely honest the desire to be someone great for the world to see (even if in the name of Jesus) feels like Spiderman and Venom to me. No matter how pure my motivations to be great/do ministry are: to see people come to Christ, to spread the Gospel, to develop others; they always somehow become covered in this disgusting desire to be seen as someone great in people's eyes. I then realize this and instead of looking to the root of the issue I have a habit of distancing myself from the vision/ministry activity I am pursuing to be rid of the venom-like motivator that has attached or to just beat myself up with guilt for having vain motivations at all. I then throw myself into the Word, serving, prayer and beg Christ to make me humble, to show me how to make Him proud, to show me how not to care about what others think, to purify my motivations, when all the while the only thing He really wants is to be with me and me with him. All the rest (growth, humility, ministry, influence, life-change) follows suit when Christ is truly at the center, not the desire to "grow" or to be seen or to be impressive. 

With that battle in mind when I go through a season of growth it begins with Christ taking something that I know in my head and allowing that head knowledge to resonate in my heart. Today I think my heart has finally clicked with the notion that true growth comes from seeking Christ for Christ's sake, not seeking Christ solely for growing. Growth comes from authentic relationship. Ministry is accomplished through that. This selfless pursuit of Christ creates a wisdom unparalleled by man because it isn't of man.  I have been trying to rush this lesson of from my head to my heart for months now, but apparently the Lord's timeline for that was a bit different. It simply took a conversation with a close friend who could see right through the crap that I say and draw out the truth behind my struggles.

I know this is a lesson I learn and relearn all the time. For most of you reading this concept is a no brainer, however, does your life reflect that head knowledge? My life obviously doesn't all the time. Most days the issue I am focusing on is different, but the lesson is the same: If Christ for Christ's sake isn't the sole cause of my relationship with him something in my life is bound to be off kilter. 

Here are some takeaways in case my written ramblings only make sense in my brain (which is always a possibility) 

1. If you seek Christ to be greater to men expect to be disappointed and disappointing. 

2. When impure motives arise, seek the core issue. Ask why you have dueling motivations. Then surrender them to Christ. Lord knows you can't defeat it yourself.  

3. Allow God to teach you in his time. Sometimes it takes longer than you want for a lesson to go from your head to your heart.

4. Ask yourself: Does the way you live your life and do ministry reflect what you say you believe? 

Encouraged

Week 1: March 23th-29th

This week has been full of it's ups and downs. At the beginning of the week I was feeling tired. Some backgound:

This semester has been a whirlwind. Due to FAFSA issues, I ended up having to pay for most of last semester in addition to my current semester costs. This resulted in my monthly payments more than tripling. Overwhelming? Yes. So this semester instead of going down to 20 work hours a week, because I am a student leader, intern, and full-time student, I increased to around 48+ a week to make ends meet.

Fast forward to now.

As I said I was feeling tired. I felt like I was doing everything and none of the things I was doing were in excellence. However, over leadership inservice Monday night, God reminded me who was going to get me through this: him. He knew my situation would change, who knew the commitments I would have, he knew I could do it IF I had him with me. I had to re-surrender myself.  I had to let go of the negativity I was speaking into my life, I had to let go of the entitlement I felt to having an easier life, and I had to let go of the notion that God wasn't in sync with my life. He refreshed my mind and my spirit and showed me he was my God, my rock. 

"For who is God, but the LORD? ANd who is a rock except our God?" - Samuel 22:32 

MAN I LOVE THAT. And let it be known that God does not just stop at scripture to remind us of truth, but he invades our life to show us truth. After that night God went out of his way to show me how I was succeeding. This week I scored the highest in the class on my World Religions exam, I scored a B+ on my Business exam (considering how I felt after taking it that is nothing short of a miracle), and my meeting with the Team: Sweden girls went so well! I was just grateful that I am not doing this on my own. 

So with this week in wrap and in beginning a new one I declare March 30th-April 5th to be one of dependence and strength. I declare successes, growth, sleep (please Lord), and a mighty rebuilding of myself. It's going to be a good one.