I. God's Revelation and Blessings
This school year has been one filled with change. I have been privileged to truly experience God’s work in my life a lot this year, and He has really made a difference in my attitude, my perspective, and my heart. The year started like any other and I went through the semester fairly uneventfully. I was part of the Narrowgate Christmas presentation, and my character (like me) struggled with self-sufficiency—but nothing really sunk in. I skipped going to the Young Disciples Conference because I really didn’t feel like going, or shelling out the money, and spent my Christmas break sleeping and wasting time. I regret not going a little bit, but I think God needed to bring me to the place where I felt I needed Him before I really became involved.
The next semester was the start of this struggle—my true struggle. Songfest practices began, and it was something I really enjoyed being a part of. I thought for sure we had first place locked; however, we came away with third place, despite all our hard work, and that was a humbling experience I think I needed to have. It helped me to see our true goal—that Jesus’ name be proclaimed through our four minutes on stage. It is difficult to see that when we are focused on winning and then actually win, but we placed third instead of first, and that’s fine—we did what we wanted to accomplish. Jesus’ name was put right on out there—even up on the big screen—and we made sure everyone knew that we were the University Bible Fellowship and that we serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And hey—third place isn’t so bad.
But that wasn’t even my biggest struggle this year. It took a lot of digging, but I discovered God’s goal for me was to discover my true identity in Him, and with His help and the help of many shepherds and shepherdesses I managed it. It definitely wasn’t easy—there was a lot of struggling within myself, and for a long time I tried to push God away. I chose Matthew 6: 9-10 as my year’s key verse for 2009 ("This, then, is how you should pray: “ 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…’ ”), but I didn’t know what that would mean until later. The struggle really became apparent when it came time for the spring conference. I used many excuses to try and get out of it, because I really didn’t want to go: I didn’t have the money, and there were other things going on that weekend that I had already determined to do, and quite honestly I felt a lot of pressure to go simply because that was a good thing to do, which totally turned me off to going.
The major turning point in this decision and life came with the James study. Our Narrowgate fellowship went through the entire book of James, which (if any of you have studied it as well) is not an easy book to go through. It leads to a lot of self-examination and reflection and doesn’t at all paint a pleasant picture of humanity in general or ourselves. The main lesson I learned was from chapter 5, verse 1 and 3b: “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. … You have hoarded wealth in the last days.” James warned those who had saved up riches in the world that growing too attached to them would only lead to misery, because all things pass away. Instead of placing their faith in things that would last and ignoring God, they put their trust in material possessions and hoarded it for themselves. It hit me, suddenly, how rich I am- not just in material things, but also in my spiritual life. God has blessed me with innumerable blessings, some I am not even aware of or take for granted every day; but I have been hoarding them for myself, instead of sharing the gifts he has given me with other people in my life.
With this lesson in mind and a sudden change of heart, I decided to go to the spring conference and even wrote my life testimony, for which God gave me the key verse Ephesians 2:10: For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Through this, God helped me to further realize that everything that has happened in my life has been to one purpose, and that is for His Glory. He has been preparing me since the very beginning, for things that He wishes me to accomplish and that He has set aside for me to do.
It had been hard keeping up this attitude, though. Recently, things at my church have finally come to a point and my dad has, as of last Sunday, resigned his position as pastor. There was a lot of pressure from people that wanted him out simply because they felt it was his fault (and his alone) that the church hadn’t grown in the six years that we’ve been there. To avoid a church split my father resigned, and my family has taken it as an opportunity to move on and do God’s work elsewhere. Still, it’s been very hard for all of us and we’ve been hurt in a lot of ways, and I easily became burnt out with anything related to God at all. Here we were, doing what God had called us to do, and essentially we were kicked out and stabbed in the back because of it. Being the lover of justice that I am, I was very upset about the whole thing and even stopped coming to Narrowgate for a while because I just couldn’t stomach being around “church people.” Especially on top of finals, my birthday, financial and other troubles at home, I just didn’t want to do much of anything but sit around and feel sorry for myself.
Through prayer, both mine and of other believers (and especially my closest friends), my outlook has changed. It still stings, but I know that God has accounted for this in His plan and may even have something ten times better waiting for us—and He is helping me to let go of my anger and hurtfulness over the situation. He is already taking care of us financially, too—my father was offered a job with AFLAC, and will be doing that when his 30 days are over, making enough money to keep us in our house and working fewer hours. We are all very happy for God’s providence and for this escape that he has offered us. In fact, I plan on coming here to Toledo for Sunday worship now that I’ve been freed from all this church politics (so you all aren’t rid of me yet!).
I am incredibly thankful for the work that God has done in my life this year and I feel a lot closer to Him now. If I can keep in mind the lessons that He has taught me in this last semester, I know that I will continue to grow. I feel like I have expanded my spiritual relationship with Him exponentially and sincerely pray that He will help me to be faithful and keep up the good work that He is doing in my life.
II. Prayer Topics and Summer Direction
- To be faithful to Bible Study over the summer
- To find a job (hopefully in Toledo so that I can keep it when school starts again)
- Also, to find a way to move into Toledo soon!
- The European Conference—whether or not I should go?
- I need to have the right reason(s)/mindset
- God’s continued provision for my family
- That I continue to grow as a student leader
One Word: Share and spend my riches in a way pleasing to God.
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