I am just writing a short blog post to let you know what is going on with me and the school. The first two weeks have been amazing but not necessarily in the ways that I expected. God has been dealing with some deep issues in my heart, a couple that I knew and several that were hidden even to me. He has been showing me wrong motives in my heart, wrong understandings of who God in and wrong understandings of my place in His heart. As we have talked about, prayed through and seen God bring healing and new insights into these things, it has been very freeing.
The thing God has spoken to me most is that He really loves me. I, like most people would have always said that I knew that. I have read the words and believed them yet I often lived contrary to that. I based my sense of worth on accomplishment and felt like that is what God demanded. Jesus set a high standard for living in the Kingdom and then said the Church would do the things that He did and greater. That is a lot of pressure if you feel like it falls on you to make it happen. I was used to being the constant server. Whenever there was a need I felt like it fell on me to do something to help with it. My value in interpersonal relationships came from how well I served people. This made me tired and easily frustrated with people. I have done all of this and they don't appreciate it or me. I would never have voiced these things but in my heart it was a hidden stronghold. Fortunately I have a discerning pastor in Life Church Morris that knew I needed to be away in a place that God could deal with things in my life.
I have been learning the value of serving with Jesus and a place of confidence in going with Him as opposed to doing things for Him. One makes me tired. The other allows me to always be in a place of rest and lets me obey the call of Jesus to abide in His love. When I serve just from a need to serve, for whatever reason, I am not in a place of being empowered by God. I begin serving from my own strength and that is a finite resource. If Jesus could only do what He saw the Father doing, how much can I accomplish? I am learning to never do anything that takes me out of the place of rest in Jesus. If He is doing it, that rest will go into the work but if He is not, it will just be work.
I m hoping by now that you are questioning your motives for serving God. Are you walking in close relationship daily with Jesus? Are you seeing Holy Spirit actively moving in the work you are doing? Do you sense His peace or do you feel a need to make things happen? Are you content if God leads you to just spend a day, a week or a month waiting in His presence and doing nothing else? Do you get easily upset when nobody joins you to help in what you are doing? Do you need to be recognized for your work, knowledge or accomplishment? I answered most of these things in a way that made me realize I was trying to gain my identity by how much I did for God. There was no rest or peace in it and there was little fruit because it was limited to my strength to produce.
I think that it is good to examine where we are every once in a while and let our motives and heart condition to be exposed. I often do not like what is pulled up but I know this, I want to live as a son of God more than anything else. I want it more than personal accomplishment, acknowledgment, money or even ministry. I am happy to be in a place that is helping each of the students to walk through this process. If you think that this process is something that you might also need to go through in order to learn to live as a Child of God, let's talk. He loves you and wants to take you along on His adventure. He does not expect you to figure out your own. His is big enough for all of us.
