I ended up hanging out with a friend after Young Life for 2 hours in the Hub. Her name is Karly and she has been going through a rough time of the pressures of school and feelings of inadequacy as a Christian. She kept talking about how she thinks she is praying wrong and reading wrong…basically she thinks she is a bad Christian.
I just tried to encourage her and allow God to speak through me to lift her up and get her going again on the path she has been faithfully following. Our talk was really good. I just shared with her that frustrations are normal and that there is no cookie-cutter way to follow Jesus. A personal relationship with Christ is just that…personal. The way you relate to God is entirely up to you. As long as you are in communication with God, the means do not really matter. Some worship God in the back of a church as they prance around with streamers dancing along to the grace he has warmed their heart with. Others speak to God in a quiet whisper as they walk to class. And yet, even others are brought to their knees, bedside…their voice is bent silent by the pounding of their chest as tears slowly trickle down the contours of their face.
Dear Church, stop making people feel like they have to fit a mold. God submits to no boundaries of potential and ways he acts so why should we as his heirs submit to something less than God.
Love, Matthew
After we spoke for awhile, Karly spoke about her roommate Sarah, another girl in YoungLife with us. Sarah has been going through similar struggles. As they are trying to decide whether to continue on and commit to YoungLife as full-time leaders, they are starting to think that they have nothing to offer…that they will not be able to connect to the kids. What a sad, but real lie from darkness. I found this excerpt by Oswald Chambers. I think it sums up what I’m trying to say and hope they come to understand.
“If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others.
Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.”
When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”
Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud.”
*Well said my brother
I feel that so many people are in the dark this semester…for so many reasons. I pray that Karly, Sarah, and so many others will find that light that draws them out and uses them as reflections to bring others out. What a beautiful cycle that is.
1 Comment
December 3, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Well said and correctly labeled as a daily dose. Keep preach’n on it. I’m feel’n what you say.