Massive praise: I’m almost 19% funded!!! Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far!!!!
This realization of just how supportive of a community I have in pursuing my faith has been a tremendous blessing on me this past week. I’m currently in a bit of a stagnant place with my faith, which is not exactly where I want to be when preparing to do ministry for nine months. I have had the opportunity to travel a good bit so far this year, which I love, but I keep reaching this discontentment. When I’m at school, I want to be home. When I’m at home, I want to be back in Idaho skiing. When I’m in Idaho skiing- well, I want to be in Idaho skiing, so I’m pretty content there. But, that isn’t where I can be right now, and I don’t like seeing this dissatisfaction within myself. I know this dissatisfaction cannot be fully solved based on where I am, it’s more of a dissatisfaction with my relationship with God.
Several weeks ago, a couple of gals from my church celebrated a brief Galentine’s Day together. During this, my friend Madison Gotthardt shared “Enneagram” with me, which basically places people into nine distinct personality categories, based on those people’s reactions and feelings towards situations. I discovered my enneagram is “Type 7- The Enthusiast”; this is defined as a spontaneous person, “motivated by a need to be happy, plan exciting and stimulating adventure, and to avoid uncomfortable or painful feelings”. Apparently, this did not shock any of my friends. Considering I decided to fly to South America three weeks before winter break, I can kind of get where they are coming from. But, the more I reflect on this understanding of myself, the more my current stagnation with God makes sense. I will not always be happy and excited. In those highs, like when I am skiing or driving across the country, I am taken aback by the immense wonder, beauty, power, and complexity God combined into our planet. I feel God intensely during those moments. Contrastingly, I also feel God when I am in pain, struggling with whatever life circumstance is going on, because guys, God is ridiculously comforting and loving. Right now, crawling through the last months of high school, and sidelined from everything I typically would be doing, I am not super stoked about anything at all. So, over the past few days, I have been struggling to figure out how to see God and be content in Him when I’m not actively adventuring, where I typically find contentness in Him.
In my attempts to be fully satisfied where I am with what I have, I’ve decided to keep a running list of everything I’m grateful for. Today, I’m ridiculously thankful for rain!, getting to scream old country songs with Sarah Hanson, a book I enjoy reading in my English class, the passenger door on my chaufuerr mini van working, skiing in Idaho, and Patagonia sales. I pray through these next weeks that I can be resassured with the conviction of the author in Phillipians 4:12-13, “12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” It is true that God provides. Maybe not on our timeline, but He always fulfills His promises. Already, since noticing the struggle with myself, God has reassured me with His perfect timing; it’s a God thing when the sermons or the questions line up exactly with your positition in life. Tonight at church, we read part of Moses’ story in Exodus, the second book of the bible. We then flipped to Hebrews, one of the very last books, and read of the absolute total conviction and work God fulfilled through the murderer. Hebrews 11:23-27 shows: “23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.”
By faith, one day we all will be content, despite the brokenness, confusion, lulls, boredom, thrills, and laughs of life.
