Who knows the reality show Survivor? In the show, the participants do ANYTHING they can to be the last one standing. The beginning is usually almost cordial. The players are superficially friendly to each other, they share things, the laugh… but as the game goes on, finger nails gather dirt, scandal and lies consume speech, and deception is everywhere… all of this to stay alive. It seems that the game gets scrappier as they spend more time together. Things start piling up and people’s REAL game plan begins to surface. The past few weeks, I’ve definitely feel like I’ve been immersed in this game. It feels as if everyone is just scrapping along, doing anything to stay afloat. Not cool.
The craziest thing is… there’s not one thing looming over the top of me. I understand that I need a large sum of money to participate in this trip, but I’m totally confident God has it under control. I have already begun to realize the depth of what it means to leave my life behind, but peace covers all the fear attached. The big things do not overwhelm me. It’s the DETAILS. Waking up and having time to sink into His word… getting adequate sleep to have lucid thoughts the next day… my daily cup of coffee/caffeine fix… enough time in my day to complete the shirts that need to be finished and also prepare for Bible study/ track practice/ and write a note to my friend telling her I love her. The details of my day to day are swallowing me whole. I’m scraping to feel “accomplished”, but even as I complete things… emptiness remains along with exhaustion, fear, and the lack of knowing if I can do this again tomorrow. This hardly ever happens in just one day. Satan attacks us one item at a time. He takes his time, wooing us into a plan to steal, kill, and destroy the Truth. After a bit, we find ourselves at the bottom of a pool with the pressure of 1,000 tons of water crushing our chest.
I don’t want to live a survivor life. My God calls us to live life in the FULLEST! He wants us to experience so much more than another heart beat or breathe with a hope that extends into eternity. I’ve been the dumb kid that swam too far out into the ocean and is now gasping for breathe. All the while, God has been the handsome Baywatch character waiting on me with a buoy and the ever assuring smile of peace and hope of living another day. (Forgive me for the vague comparison of God to David Hasselhoff… or Pamela Anderson) All jokes aside… I was designed for Victory, not in my own strength, but in the strength of the God that raised His Son from the dead. OH YEAH! I’ll take that over doggy paddling in the deep end any day.
Love this scripture… it has thrown so many different hues of color on my faith…
This is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying our spirits are being renewed each day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we won’t look at the troubles we can see now, rather, we fix our eyes on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things unseen will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
