What am I doing with my life? (Part 1)

That’s the big question isn’t it? What are you doing after graduation? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Questions like this keep getting thrown at me lately because the scary truth is that I’m only a year away from graduating college and moving into the real world. I have loved practically every moment of my college experience; it’s like living in this little bubble between childhood and adulthood, where you have all the freedom, but without all the responsibilities. It’s a time when most people discover who they really are and what they are passionate about. We spend this time studying and preparing for “the rest of our lives” so that we may go on to be great and successful. College sets the direction for where the rest of our lives will take us.

But in reality all eternity can be represented by a movie, and our life is one one screen shot of the entire movie, there is maybe one glimpse of our face in a crowd. The Bible says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14) I want my life to count for the movie, not the one hundredth of a second that is my life. One of the things I see in college is all the worthless causes that our world stands for and how tempting it is to join them. I know that there is only one cause that is guaranteed to succeed and worth living for, and that’s Jesus Christ.

For many people this means serving God through their occupation and using the desires and gifts that God has given them, whether that’s being a teacher, doctor, politician, athlete, or anything else. But for me, I know that God has called me to a different path.

I believe God has given us our strengths, abilities, passions, and desires for a reason. He wants us to use them to serve him. It’s taken me a long time to realize this but in my life I don’t have many dominate passions or desires above just wanting to serve God. I never felt motivated to be a teacher, or to be in medicine, or to be a hugely successful businesswoman. Those things seemed okay to me, but never something I could see myself doing for my whole life.  I think that this is one of the reasons it took me so long to pick a major and that even now I don’t feel fully satisfied in it, because that is not what I am supposed to do.

Two things God has given me are a willing heart and a broken heart. One thing that moves and motivates me more than anything is hearing the stories of missionaries going out to the unreached people of the world. The biggest thing that breaks my heart is seeing all the millions of people that don’t know Jesus or that He is the only one that can satisfy them. I know that full time missions is what I want to do, maybe for the rest of my life, or maybe until God calls me into ministering in a workplace somewhere.

I’ve had this on my heart for a while now but some things always make me stop, and it’s the things I don’t want to give up and the things that I think I have a right to. I don’t want to give up my comfort or my desires for friendship, happiness, and the American dream. I don’t want to risk my health, my privacy, or my financial well-being. I want my family and all the other people in my life to approve of me and be proud of me; I want their recognition. I want stability, justice, and time. There are a lot of things I want and think that I deserve, but it’s a hard truth to learn when you realize that you don’t deserve any of that. Jesus never promised us that everything would be easy, comfortable, and what we expected. Jesus never called anyone to comfort, and he had to give up his rights too…

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
and being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:5-8

Jesus yielded his right to comfort, respect, honor, justice, to be understood, to live, and even to be in the perfect fellowship with God that He always had been. If He gave up all of this for us, how can I not give up my desire for comfort, approval, and a regular salary for Him?

I know I’ve said a lot of loaded decisions in this blog but its something I’ve been praying over and meditating on for over a year now. But in the end it still comes down to taking everything I’ve learned through this process, and taking a step of faith. Because after all, faith is not waiting until you are 100% sure.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.’”
Matthew 9:36-38

God is the ultimate pursuer of our hearts.

Often times I am not a fan of the dreaded Valentine's Day holiday. For those of us single ladies the whole day and week surrounding it is a reminder of just how single we really are. I have never had a significant other at the time of Valentine's Day so I have never experienced it as that, but every year it has always been the dreaded day where it seems like everyone has someone but me.

But this year was different.

I felt so loved all day, some love from friends and from family, but mostly I felt loved by my Savior. All day I was happy and content and full of joy. There is no earthly explanation as to why either, which is why I know it was from above. All day I was reminded of his love for me, through the weather and even small blessings like hitting all green lights. Overall I just had a great feeling of peace all day that I know did not come from me considering it was on my least favorite day of the year.

The verse Psalms 29:11 comes to mind.

"The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace."

God really did give me more than enough strength and peace throughout the day. One of my friends said to me "you know Jesus is the ultimate pursuer of our hearts". And how true it is! No one else can satisfy us, comfort us, care for us more, or love us more than he can. Not only that, he is jealous for our love. He wants our attention and he wants our time. He wants the best for us because he love us. It didn't matter that I didn't have a boyfriend or valentine anymore, I had the ultimate lover. No one else could love me like Jesus could, He loved us enough to die for us. And the best part is that we can never lose it.

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39 (New Living Translation)

Count Your Blessings.

I just love how God sends me little reminders of how I should be thankful for what I am given. Just this morning my teacher let us out of class late, I hit every red light on the strip, and the I couldn't find a parking spot at the place I was going to get my lunch. Just as I was getting very frustrated and practically angry, God sent me a reality check.

I was pulling out of the lot that had no spots and going to look for somewhere else. My car window was half down and I saw two people walking down the sidewalk towards me. I notice that it is a homeless man and woman carrying large bags with all of their belongings. At this point there is also a rare break in traffic to where I could pull out. I look to the couple, knowing that they have the right of way to go in front of my car. The man stops for me to get out and says "You better go when you have the chance. Have a blessed day."

This really touched me. This man with no place to call a home, clean clothes, or a car is telling me to have a blessed day. And that is just what I have, every day is a blessed day for me. I thought back to all the complaints I'd made that day and turned them around. I am thankful to be in college, thankful to have a car, and thankful to be able to go grab some delicious food before heading to the job that I am thankful to have. Its sad that it takes something like this for me to really count and appreciate all my blessings.


Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3

Eternal Perspective

I wish I was good at being a consistant blogger but I'm not, so please bare with me.

It would take me 17 blog posts to explain to you all the things that God has been teaching me lately, and I don't know if I can type that much so let me summarize.

To get a little background on how I've been feeling, just last week I had a conversation with a roommate about how I was in a very desert-like season in my walk with God. I did not feel His presence like I used to and doubts and temptations were really starting to get to me in this time. It was a horrible place to be and I desperately wanted out of it, but I did not know what I could do. I read the Bible and did my devotionals but I still couldn't feel God like I used to. I was so discouraged.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go on a free trip to Atlanta with Campus Crusade. Basically I thought all it was going to be was them convincing us to be on staff and I'd thought about what that would look like in the past but I was not considering it at all anymore. But hey, it was free and my best friends were going. I honestly had no expectations for God to work through this trip since I'd felt so far from him lately, but boy did He prove me wrong.

Friday night I realized this was going to be more than them just "convincing us to be on staff". The first talk was on our rights and expectations. As christians we should have two expectations in life:
1. Because he loves us, we can trust Him to provide for us and care for us
2. Because we live in a fallen world we will suffer and sacrifice and are called to yield our rights
I always found comfort in the first expectation but the second one got to me. He used the example of Jesus to compare this to. A very well known passage of scripture is Philippians 2:5-9. Through this scripture we can see just how many rights Jesus was willing to give up for us: the right to comfort, respect, honor, justice, to be understood, to live, and even to be in fellowship with his father. If Jesus gave all these rights up for us, how much should we be willing to give up for him. We cling to our rights of health, free time, recognition, respect, success, comfort, justice, and approval like they belong to us. But the truth is that they do not. This talk really brought back all the times I had thought about being in full-time ministry but ruled it our solely because of my "right" to have a regular salary, success, and approval of friends and family.

But my real amazing experience was on Saturday night. Every doubt I'd had in the past week about God orchestrating my life and being there for me was shattered. God showed up for me, big time. We had discussion groups all weekend and we were with our friends from our school but had a staff leader from another school. Michelle was our group leader and I'd never met her before but I know that God had put us together for a reason. The night's talk was on having an eternal perspective (easier said then done right?). But really it all comes down to looking at it this way, if all the eternity is a time line our life is barely a speck on this forever long line. Do you want to spend your life living it for the meaningless dot (yourself) or do you want to live it for the line (our creator and Lord)? I don't know about you, but I want my life to count for something bigger than me.

In our discussion groups after this talk we were asked what helps us have an eternal perspective in life. All that came to my mind was the sunday school answer of "reading our bible, spending time in prayer, and engaging in christian fellowship", so I said that answer. Michelle turned that completely around for me by saying that what gives her more perspective then anything is being "in the world but not of the world". Seeing how lost people are and how desperately they are searching for something to fill the void in their lives gives her more perspective then anything.

This completely humbled me. I was instantly convicted by how comfortable I was in my little christian circle I was. For a while our group discussed our problems in falling into christian bubbles, and some other girls said the nonchristian friends they had that they were praying for. I tried to think of nonchristians I was close to in life, and no one came to mind. At this point I am feeling horrible about how far I have removed myself from the lost who need God's love the most. Then Michelle begins to share a story with us, I don't remember why she even told us this long story but she did. Keep in mind she had no idea that I have an on campus job where I work with international students everyday.

Michelle's Story:
She began telling us about how she volunteered as a conversation partner one semester with an international student. It was a girl from a country in East Asia and I won't share her name for privacy reasons. All Michelle prayed was that she would have the opportunity to share the gospel with the girl before the semester was over. Turns out God knew better, their very first meeting the girl asked if Michelle was a Christian. Turns out she asked because she thought everyone in America was a "christian" and she actually had no idea what that term meant. Michelle got to tell her the gospel and her testimony in that very first meeting. The girl was an atheist and did not believe in God, nor did she change after the first time of hearing the gospel, but she continued to meet with Michelle for an hour a week every week. She would always ask all sorts of question about God, the bible, and religion. Six months later she told Michelle she was no longer an atheist and she did believe there was a god. Two years later she accepted Christ. She is currently considering going on staff with Campus Crusade even though she is graduating with a doctorate in engineering because she wants to help save her country. Michelle only prayed to be able to share the gospel with her once and God did this. Who are we to limit His power? Michelle gained a sister in Christ and a lifelong friend who joins her and her family for every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By the end of this story I am in tears. Just minutes earlier I was feeling horrible about my lack of influence with nonbelievers. Michelle told this story and had no idea that I work with international students on campus as a job everyday, and I was currently in charge of organizing conversation partners for the semester. I was suddenly slapped in the face with God's presence. I know He brought me on that trip and in that discussion group for a reason. God reaffirmed everything He is doing in my life. Having a job at the English Language Institute has been growing my heart for international students all year and I have got to have an eternal perspective there. The 3 months these students are in America may be the only time that they will hear the gospel, and God may use me to share it with them. I hope that he does.

Since coming home my entire perspective on life has changed. We have got to take advantage of every moment. I have even more to say but I will save that for another post and leave you with this.

"Why, you do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this'"
James 4:14-15