I just stumbled across a journal I started back in January. Even though I remember what I was feeling when I wrote it, reading it now brings to light things that don't really make sense with what I was going through at the time. I struggled then too, but I was hopeful...

These words are the last of what I've written from March 31st:

"I need more time with God. I can't do this without Him. I miss Him, I miss His influence in my life. I miss spending an hour a day with Him. I miss the me that desperately loved Him, that purposely sought after Him, that willingly obeyed Him, the me that knew better than to let her priorities get mixed up. But there is the hope for change. Though God doesn't change, He is the God of change...He does not leave His followers untouched. I love that about Him. I want to be changed. I want to change. I need to change.

Change me God."

Reading that makes me remember what I'm missing by doing what's easy and just shutting God out in my suffering. It's been a difficult year and an especially difficult summer, but I can't help but feel like I have to believe there is still some fight left in me. I remember writing "change me God" and hesitating. Now, months later, I see that I am changed- though not for the better. Not yet anyway. I have to believe that things will work themselves out and that the storm will pass...that an oasis will appear in this desert. I have to believe that God is not done with me yet. I've never felt so lost or hopeless, and things have never looked so bleak, but I'm learning everyday that I am nothing. I can do nothing on my own or in my own strength. I am so small. I have yet to learn just how gigantic my God is, and how mighty He is to save me. But that will come. Though I have to wait on God to save me, I am called to fight this battle within me, not with my own strength, but with His.

What a crazy summer it has been so far. It has been completely unexpected in every sense of the word. It's funny that I went into summer with no expectations or ideas of what it would look like, and now, a third of the way into the summer, I realize that it has been just...unpredictable. I feel like I've been waiting around for God to DO something and I've just been sitting around doing an awful lot of nothing in the meantime.

And, what's worse, I've been hiding the most important part of me from the people that care about me the most. I know something is wrong when I don't want to tell anyone that I've been keeping God at a distance and it's been eating away at me all summer. 

I hide so much. I know I need to step out from behind my attempts to conceal myself...step out from daydreaming and writing and discomfort and excuses.  "Do you love Me more than these?" from John 21:15 has convicted and haunted me for months, and I've been running from it. It's time for me to stop, breathe, and face what I've been running away from...Who I've been running from. Oh my reluctance in writing that last sentence. It isn't enough to say it or even mean it...I have to turn around and run headlong into the arms of my Father...knowing that I've been stubborn, knowing that I'm wrong, sincerely meaning that I'm sorry. I need to put down my defensive anger and just let go...and face the tears and pain I've been trying so hard to avoid. Being hurt is part of life...getting hurt and let down is what life seems to be all about sometimes. It's foolish to avoid it and turn to anger instead. That's too easy.

I need to hear Him ask me... "do you love Me more than these?"

It's so like me to want to ask Peter what the heck he was thinking. Not only did he get the privilege of following Jesus around and learning directly from the Teacher Himself, but he got to see Him resurrected and have the Holy Spirit breathed into his lungs... And yet, it's even more like me to do exactly what Peter did. Peter went back to his fish. When Jesus showed up, Peter and the other apostles knew that they were caught and knew that it was the Lord. And all Jesus said to Peter in regard to the 153 fish he had caught was "do you love Me more than these?" Even after the incredible death He died just days earlier, and His even more incredible ascension into heaven, Peter turned back to those 153 fish. Have I been turning to my 153 fish instead of raising my eyes to see Christ risen from death...standing before me...as if asking "what will you choose?"

I need to look at my life...at the life I live everyday "for Jesus" and honesty ask myself who I choose to serve every morning. Who am I really obeying? Who do I love more...me or Him? Do I love Him more than the 153 fish I stubbornly clutch in my hands?

 

"Lay down your robe, leper or rogue

Keep yourself open here.

Don't let the cold close to your soul, 

No one is free come light.

Heavier stones think to themselves

That they're alone here.

But everyone grieves and everyone feels

Lonely tonight."

-Mainstay

 

 

 

It's funny how you can think you're doing okay, but then God wakes you up and makes you realize just how far you are from Him.

What I would give to have a refined faith...faith like a child, faith that is simple, faith that is real and genuine. As excited as I am to serve God next fall, I need to remember how vital my relationship with God is. If He isn't my source...leading students to Christ will become just a job. If I'm not seeking Him, what am I seeking? As excited as I am for the plans God is possibly making, I need to just slow down and devote all of who I am to Him. Afterall, this isn't about me. And I'm starting to really understand that. I'm starting to understand where God belongs in my life. I'm starting to understand where I fall into His plan.

In the past, God, I've been so afraid. So much of who I am is directed and controlled by fear. Oh God, I am nothing compared to You. Please continue to build in me. Please continue to create good things in me. This year You made me nothing, and now You're making me into something. Please keep me humble, low, willing to serve You. Let Your love humble me God, because I don't deserve the life You've given me. I don't deserve anything but the consequences of my actions. Yet You continue to draw near and call me closer.

You are God...