So, speaking of change... I'm a sophomore in college. That doesn't say a whole lot.. but I have grown so much in my walk with God in the past year. When I first came to college as a freshman, I felt nothing more than lost and out of place and completely desperate for Christian fellowship. I wanted nothing more than a community of believers who shared the same love for Jesus as my own and had the same goal of faith in mind. As it happened... such a community did not exist. Or.. if it did.. I never found it. My second day on campus at the University of Iowa I got plugged into a campus ministry. I did not even hesitate to commit myself to the outreach team and a Bible study and the weekly meetings and the international ministry. I was raised to serve. To serve God when ever the opportunity arose. Little did I know, that not everyone in this ministry loved Jesus. In fact, very little of the people I met had an absolute passion for God and, as far as I could tell, none of them really cared either.
That was hard. It left for many nights of tears. I would so often return to my dorm room after one of the weekly meetings, or outreach meetings, or Bible studies fighting tears of discouragement. I spent many evenings alone, curled up in my window seat pouring my heart out to God. And it is not to say that I didn't have friends. Those I had. Christian friends. They loved God, I knew. But some.. they tried not to be TOO passionate so as not to scare off the non-believers, and others.. well.. their god and christianity fit their want for a god and religion.
If you're gonna claim it.. stamp it on your forehead and live out loud, yo. I didn't want a community of fake people, excited for Jesus on some nights.. but acting completely different on weekends. Granted, God uses broken people to further his Kingdom.. but an entire ministry of broken people who are not getting fixed is going to fall apart.
I've heard again and again that "X often makes this mistake of putting people who are not ready for it in a position of leadership". The people in charge know this. Lots of people know this. But it still happens.. again, and again, and again. :( But God still uses it I'm sure.. it's just discouraging from my own perspective.
So... after a rough first semester of being discouraged and disappointed.. I allowed myself to become filled with bitterness and resentment towards the ministry and specific people in the ministry. It was very spiritually unhealthy, but I didn't feel like I could fight my true feelings any more. I was sick of pretending everything was happy day.. so I gave up. I gave into my bitterness and my words and actions towards those around me were far from kind. When Thanksgiving break came, I hosted a prayer and praise with the high school youth group at my house... it was wonderful. I more or less did it because I needed legit Christian fellowship. But it was like ice water on a parched throat. It didn't matter that these high schoolers were younger than me .. they loved Jesus. :) Thanksgiving was a good recharge. But of course.. my heart was still sick with bitterness. Christmas break was a wonderful time as I recharged with my family and was back in the safe, Christian environment I had known my whole life. No swearing, no drinking, no smoking, no fake Christianity.
In my last week of Christmas break before heading back to the dreaded land of the spiritually dead, I attended a weekend conference that my church put on and it focused on loving others. It was a punch in the stomach. I KNEW that i did not love. I couldn't understand how I could love the people back at school. I had NOTHING. Absolutely no love to give. None. But the speaker talked about how there are some people that we cannot love on our own strength. But, God has a well of love that will help us to love well. Hmmm... this.. I needed. Although it would have been nice to say at that moment I made a complete 180 degree turn around and was filled with love and was able to go back to school and mend broken friendships and be a beacon of love and light to those around me. That didn't happen. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to draw near to God and draw love from His well. My first two days back on campus I had a lot of time by myself as my sister (who was also my new roommate) was busy with other things. I would pray every day that God would change my heart and help me to love the people around me. There were two people in my "friend circle" that I saw very often but despised. My heart was filled with contempt toward them. I even made a line graph.. it looked a little something like
I-----------------------I------------I----------I-------------I
complete hate don't like tolerate like God's love overflows
and I would mark where I was every single day. I would pray morning and night for my heart to change. And slowly but surely, after a few weeks.. my red inkpen X-marks began to move from the "complete hate" line over to the "don't like", and a few weeks after that.. to the tolerate..and...kinda to the like. It was not until mid-april of spring semester that I really started to notice a change. But God did major re-constructive surgery on my heart.. and I am filled with joy to say that my heart just overflows with love for these two people. :)
So.. as I took those steps towards love, I stumbled a lot. It was not easy at first.. but God held my hand as I took my little baby steps, one step at a time. God is faithful to watch over me and catch me when I take a bad step and I shall keep following Him, one step at a time.
"because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace." ~Luke 1:78b-79
No comments:
Post a Comment