1.07.2008

Nothingness: good or bad?

No one prepared me for this life post-college. The ups and downs- one minute believeing I can change the world, the next minute wondering when along the way I lost my mind. I knew there would be financial pressures. I knew there would be career pressures (well- assuming I have a job that is). I expected the 20 million questions about my non-married single status. What I didn't expect is that horrible and terrifying debate on the subject of "what to do with my life?" For many that question was settled in college. I thought I had answered it. I graduated with my B.S. degree and set out to change lives and thereby make my dent for Jesus in this world.

What happened instead?

I began to realize that before I could change others' lives, God must change my own. I had built safety nets for myself. God pulled them. Family, friends, finances, health. Gone. I realized with an awful eye-opening revelation how supreme God really is. I also became keenly thankful that God is a good God, and even our pain is for our best. My world was turning upside down. God was changing the game and I no longer had any tricks up my sleeve. The thing that was hardest to understand and was quite difficult to change was my life ambition. God tilted my idea of how I was to serve Him. Ever play 52 card pick up with a little brother or sister? It was as if my original life dreams scattered like a deck of cards into a random pile of chaos.

Someone once wrote that God will remove all security nets from those trying to serve Him. It's out of a person's nothingness that God is most glorified. Nothingness. I don't think there's anything I enjoy quite so fun as learning about the state of nothingness. (Yes, that was sarcasm you picked up in that previous statement.)

Yet, despite the frustration and mistakes, God has given me an end goal. It's a little fuzzy, but the general description is there. It's not going to be an easy road. Even tonight I faced doubt from well-meaning Christians, but God did not give me this burden and did not make me a soldier in this eternal battle to not follow it through. How I will reach this goal I have no idea. What my next step is, I haven't a clue. What will it take? That I think I can answer. It will require faith staring through the inconclusive evidence to the belief that God has indeed called me to this and will see me through.

Romans 4:18-22
18(Abraham)In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness."

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