Hey Y’all!
I haven’t used this particular blog since returning to the U.S. from my world race mission trip, and I feel God prompting my heart to revive and continually update it because the ultimate race still isn’t over!
After settling back home, I continued taking community college classes through the spring of 2019, and just this past fall I enrolled at North Carolina State University and have been there since. I am partially through the final semester of my junior year, still proclaiming a Christian identity and verbally promoting a moral lifestyle, but after confronting myself and completing a self-check, I honestly find my life to be lacking.
The Problem
It’s incredibly easy for me to present an outward appearance of constant happiness and confidence, and also to fool myself to settle beneath that facade and accept it as reality; however, I found that this path leads to deep, dark pitfalls in life and has allowed for sin to gain strongholds within me:
- I find myself comparing my life to my Christian friends’ lives.
- I take rejection hard because I’m not satisfied that God wants me, I’d rather have other people desire me.
- I allow stress and anxiety to fill my non-busy moments.
- I have not offered much public compassion.
These things are by no means rooted within me, but they have attached themselves as parasites, creating emotional and spiritual and physical tiredness. I’ve tried dealing with them on my own, without God and without help of friends and loved ones, but of course nothing got better.
My selfish reasoning was that I am probably the most strong-willed person I know and that most people know. If I decide I’m going to do or not do something, I will make it happen. I will work with determination until it is accomplished and my goal is satisfied. This is probably my greatest character strength and yet also my greatest weakness because I’ve seen it produce passion (which is beneficial), but as of late I’ve also seen it produce stubbornness, which latches on like a tumor and blocks many blessings.
The Realization
I recently had a conversation with my pastoral friend who reminded me that where the Holy Spirit was invited in and where He lives and works, sin cannot also indwell. It’s either a heart of worship, or one convoluted by sin and pride. In this very vulnerable moment, I will admit that I have been wrestling with the realization that I have not in fact been walking with a heart of worship. But now that I see it for what it is and have acknowledged that I need a change– a transformation– a different goal, now I need to immediately start asking Christ to walk with me in each moment so I don’t try to take control again.
If I haven’t already told everyone I know, since I got my first smartphone my favorite song “Multiplied” by my favorite band “Needtobreathe” has been my alarm (that goes off 10 times every morning) ever since. It’s been YEARS of waking up to the same voice, the same words, the same song each and every day. Isn’t it funny how humans have this innate ability to hear the same thing and see the same amazing thing and yet become desensitized to it? The song’s chorus goes like this:
“God of mercy sweet love of mine,
I have surrendered to Your design
May this offering stretch across the skies
And these Hallelujahs be multiplied”
Now I’m completely hearing it from a different standpoint and the second line is like a sucker punch to my gut. I haven’t surrendered anything at all, but I have been gifted with the blessed life even so.
I have been chasing the wrong things, things that this world has to offer rather than what God has already given me, and I’ve been lost and genuinely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of temptations and idols, and false blessings that there are on a college campus.
The Resolution
I have been going to Mercy Hill Church I believe since my senior year of high school. While I’m at school, I do not have the opportunity to drive back home and go to services, so I will usually watch their youtube sermons after the church has uploaded them. I just finished watching an old sermon from New Years and I think this might have been the most provoking one I’ve heard yet.
Let me relate this to you: there’s a tip that you might have heard many health blogs or dietitians say that it’s best not to start a diet in the middle or end of the week because those are some of the hardest times to keep yourself accountable while your life is busy and you can easily choose convenience.
Although this sermon was intended for the beginning of the year, I feel like the message has relevance especially part way through the year when you’re already caught in a rut. It’s about what we really consider a blessed life to be: is It a set of circumstances on earth that we’re chasing, or is it a life that is lived in a covenant relationship with God?
While I was overseas in Cambodia, I would see many people (Cambodians, our hosts, and my fellow squad-mates included) wearing tshirts that said “same same but different” on the front. Although I’m pretty sure it was a movie reference in Cambodia and just a funny inside joke with my squadmates, this phrase speaks to my heart and convicts me that because I profess Christ, I am still the same person, but I should be different from who I was before I accepted salvation. This sermon entitled “New Year, Same You” reminds me of this truth and if you are in the same place in life as me, I hope you watch it and ask God to open your hands and accept the truth. I am including the link in this blog and I would highly recommend watching this first message of this series.
The Challenge
Jesus changes lives people, and He will use us to help Him, but we need to rectify those changes within ourselves first.
Closing Notes:
I would appreciate if y’all could keep me and this journey in your prayers, and of course send any requests you may have my way and I would love to do the same!
If you have any topics or creative blog ideas, please let me know! I will definitely need some inspiration and advice.
