Five months ago, I was a worship leader at Biola University, surrounded by an amazing community of people who knew me and loved me. I had professors and mentors who encouraged me and affirmed me. I thrived in multiple positions of leadership and got to be involved in ministry decisions. I was well recognized for my proficiency at school and many told me I had a promising future ahead.
And then it was gone.
Graduation ripped me out of the sphere in which my life circulated. It may seem like a childish thing to mourn, but I felt as though I went from being important and valued in community to being back home with my parents, where no one remembered me, working at a Hallmark. No longer titled, no longer a worship leader, no longer in community. All I could think about was the things I had lost and how I was going to get them back. But then I realized I never would. You can’t recreate experience. We go through seasons and I was grieving the loss of a glorious one. I was frustrated beyond all measure and angry with God. How could he bench me right at the beginning of the race?
But gently, softly, God began to whisper to my heart, where do you find your value?
Is it in having status and achievements?
The highest achievement you could ever earn is by yielding to my grace.
The presence of your friends around you?
I am your friend when all others disappear.
Do you find your value the high opinion of your professors and mentors?
My opinion is the one that matters.
In being a leader?
Best leaders are the ones that follow me first.
Where do you find your value Megan?
Will you choose to find it in me, instead of the things of the world?
Because I have not benched you at the beginning of the race. The Race has just begun.
God has brought me from riches to rags, humbling me so that I might see that my value lies in the wrong things. My value is found in Him and Him alone, and that, my friends, is a true rags to riches story.
So it is here, in waiting room of life, before I embark on the World Race, to strip myself of my earthly value system. Easier said than done, but as my eyes slowly learn to turn to Christ, my values turn with them. As I go on the Race, I don’t want to be tethered by fear and concern for where my value stacks against others. I want to rest in the comfort that my value is found in him and him alone. So as I continue to prepare, I pray that God will continue to humble me and mold my heart into his likeness.
