It’s all about Jesus. This is how He has changed my life.
{God knows me so intimately, with such an incomprehensible love – I fell in love with Psalm 139 for this reason, “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me…” I could never hide from Him. I could never outrun Him. Even when I rejected Him by giving into the lies and fears, He was pursuing me all along.}
All growing up, I believed that there was an equation to success and that was the American Dream. Get a good education, good career, start a beautiful family, white picketed fence… all leading up to finding “happiness” in life. During my time in college, I repeatedly tried to pursue each of the things that I believed would fulfill me: Being at the top of my class in school, having lots of friends, connecting in a community, finding my own church/college groups, having a place to serve, working and saving money, and spending time with my family.
One by one I felt as though each of these areas of my life was being stripped from my hands. Though all of these things were potentially “good” things to strive towards, I definitely viewed each area as the next solution to my problem. This was my Season of Struggle and it was hard, lonely, and painful.
Over a year ago, when college was coming to an end, I finally began to realize these lies I had been holding onto all my life. I began to loosen my grip and come to my knees before my God who cares about me more than I knew. I started to see that life doesn’t need to be about what I can or can’t accomplish. Life doesn’t need to look perfect. ?It’s not about wallowing in the sadness that I currently am going through. It’s not about waiting for happiness that I will eventually experience in the future. Instead, it IS about coming to a place where I can recognize what God wants to do and IS doing right now. God was working in me and He began healing my heart. In the months to follow, I found that every area of my life that I felt like I had lost, that I cared about so much before – God began pouring back into my life, 10 fold. He led me into a Season of Blessing and it was overflowing with rich promises.
Looking back, I can see that through the all of the struggles and all of the blessings, God was telling me: “Kristy, I am here and I am all that you need.”
Tim Kizziar wrote, “Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” I began to see that even though I loved everything about my life, the reason why I loved it so much was not even because of the blessings I was experiencing. I loved life because I was yearning to be in God’s presence and He was meeting me in that place. Jeremiah 29:12-13 says, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
You know what I’ve figured out after everything? Landing a fantastic job, buying that dream car, and life being easy—yes, those things can bring a moment of happiness…but joy—experiencing pure, lasting, uncontrollable joy—that’s so much MORE than anything that can bring me happiness. Joy is found through struggling, because when we struggle, we can be certain God is teaching us something. Joy is found in Jesus.
(I adopted the title of this blog from the core message of the church I grew up in, Sun Hills. It was amazing being able to share this part of my story a few weeks back. I love how my story fit so perfectly with Dan’s message. Thanks for that, God.)
If you would like to listen to this message, here is the link:
http://www.sunhills.org/resources/messages/pursue-christ-as-gain
