Selfless Ambition

I was utterly helpless to stop the tears from falling once they started, and even though I could feel God telling me to forgive myself as He already had, I just couldn't. I was too overwhelmed by the truth of my selfishness and pride as they lay bare and ugly before me.  How could I have been so unknowlingly self-seeking and destructive?  Worse, how could I have been so prideful about a selflessness that simply didn't exist? These were the questions I asked myself one night some time ago after days of praying for God to reveal me to ...well, me.  "God, if there's anything in my heart that grieves You or for which I need to repent, please show me," is essentially what I asked, and although I already knew to be prepared for what He might reveal, I wasn't prepared at all.  As it turns out, I had been pridefully thinking more highly of myself than I ought in a certain circumstance, and in another I had completely sacrificed the well-being of another for my own misplaced selfish gain.  I was so disappointed in myself in that painful moment of clarity, and hearing God tell me I was forgiven only seemed to make me feel worse.  I continued to softly cry, and although I finally mustered the courage to ask God to help me forgive myself, I was determined not to ever fall into those pits again.  Instead, I decided to live the rest of my life with selfless ambition. 

Exposed

Not too long ago I started working at a financial planning and investments company, and as an employee working in the wealth management industry, I was required to go through a somewhat extensive background search.  I was fingerprinted, credit checked, and intimately examined, at least from a "who are you, who have you been, and who will you become," perspective.  What followed was an interrogation, passed judgment, and a verdict of unacceptable by the brokerage firm through whom my boss does her clearing, and when I was asked to provide detailed information for each credit report ding, I felt embarrassed, rejected, and absolutely naked.  To make it worse, my new boss, whom I'd barely known 24 hours, was unable to conceal her utter shock and horror at what she saw through the doors of my past.  There was absolutely nothing in my personal life, neither past nor present, that was hidden from her and I was absolutely humiliated when the worst parts of my history resurfaced.  "God, what are You doing? What is it I'm meant to learn?  Why am I here!?" I asked through choked sobs after my boss not so tactfully informed me she'd never seen anything so bad.  For my first two days on the job I did little more than cry, clean my face, and then cry some more.  I went home feeling numb, confused, and completely exposed, but it was through that raw and painful exposure that I learned a new level of trusting God to work everything out for my good (Romans 8:28).

My Whole Heart

I recently returned home from a mission trip to Door of Faith Orphanage in Mexico, and it was in the weeks leading up to my departure that I truly worked through giving God my whole heart for the first time. Though prior to this trip I believed I had given Him my heart in its entirety, I have since discovered that the piece of it held by my seven year old son was still under lock and key and not even God had been invited in. For all my confessions of a heart fully surrendered to the Lord, it turns out I had surrendered only the part that involved me as a stand alone woman. I stood at the foot of the cross entirely alone with my son held back from God by my own arm. I dared not surrender his life and well being into God's hands, but instead kept him tucked away into the facade of my own personal control in this life. God has now shown me, however, that I've never been less in control of not only my own life, but also that of my son's and every other loved one to whom I'm emotionally connected. I can no more control the future of my child than I can the stars of the universe and to think otherwise is not only grossly self-deceptive, but also extremely foolish and prideful. How dare I assume the position of God Almighty as my son's ultimate protector, and yet I've done it determinedly and faithfully every day for as long as I can recall. Bear in mind that I'm not dismissing my authority as his parental protector; I'm referring specifically to the protection that can come only from above, and it wasn't until my departure for another country that I fully surrendered authority and control and gave the Lord my whole heart - I gave Him my son.

My Place

As my husband roared with laughter, I turned to look at him in genuine shock. "What? Why are you laughing?" I asked in puzzlement.  "You just said you needed a weekend retreat! Why do you think you need a weekend retreat?" he asked, still laughing.  "Well, because I do," I replied back matter-of-factly as I dramatically threw myself down on the bed.  With my face buried in pillows, I tried to explain in the most theatrical tone I could muster. "I'm confused," I whined, voice muffled by the pillows cradling my face.  "About what!?" he asked as he unsuccessfully tried to contain his laughter. "Stop laughing. I really need to have a weekend retreat out in nature where I can just pray and ponder and figure everything out" I said. "What do you need to figure out!?" he asked in bewilderment as he leaned down to patronizingly caress my hair. Ordinarily I would have slapped his hand away and told him to stop the condescension, but I was so entrenched in my own pity party, I couldn't even find the strength to make him stop. "Everything!" I cried as I threw my arms out in exasperation, knocking pillows off the bed in the process.  "God is just not making things clear enough," I said, and to which Sam replied, "isn't He though?"  "Ooohh....clever response," I thought to myself, and although I was tempted to give his answer consideration, I decided instead to continue building my case.  "No, Sam, He's not. If He would just come right down here and tell me what to do, I would do it, but He keeps changing things up on me and throwing weird things like my current job into the mix.  Moreover, I'm not making money doing what I love and what I know He has called me to do, so how can I put my entire self into the ministry when 45 hours a week I'm working somewhere else! It just doesn't make sense and God just isn't giving me direction!" and with that I exited my own stage and waited expectantly on him to agree...or applaud...or request an encore.  He didn't.  Instead, he said what my heart already knew - "until you embrace where you are and learn to love it and work at it as God would have you do then you're never going to find your place because it will always be the next better thing around the corner.  Your place is right here, right now."

Just Get It

Have you ever worked so hard at doing something to glorify God that you wound up working overtime on glorifying yourself rather than Him? An often completely unintentional "oops," but one that happens all too frequently among believers who wish to lead others into a heart relationship with God. Sometimes we get so busy being "glorifying" to God that we lose sight of what truly glorifies Him the most - letting Him lead.  In trying to stand firm in our faith and devoted to our Lord, we accidentally get caught up in "my way" rather than God's way, and the results are rarely the glorifying outcome we started out trying to produce.  I've come to realize something in recent months and it's that you can't bring glory to God for another person. That's the other person's job, yet so often we try to multi-manage lives and wind up living everyone else's life but our own.  It's absolutely exhausting, but it doesn't have to be if we'll just stay focused on living our own path, bringing glory to God through our own life, and staying true to our own convictions while accepting that everyone's convictions are not always our own.  It sounds easy enough, but it's more difficult than it sounds when you're madly in love with Christ and want the whole world to feel what you feel. Instead, when you find yourself wanting to show God to another person, your zeal might really only wind up showing off you rather than showing God.  In our quest to "help" people "get" God the way we do in our own hearts, we wind up preventing them from "getting" anything at all, and in the process we accidentally put ourselves in the role only God can fill.  You can't cause another person to "just get it" as you do; they have to get it on their own and on the timetable set between them and God, so just get this - trying to force someone to "get" God the way you do usually results only in repelling them away from the very God you're trying to cause them to get.   

Until I Didn't

As I threw his lunch in the trash and stormed out of the room in anger, my eyes began to well with tears.  I just wanted them both to leave so I could open the gates for the flood that was bursting at my ducts.  In the time span of 24 hours I had been dealt an emotionally crushing blow in my personal life that left me far less together than what I wanted.  This was not the time for wise cracks, jokes, and ungratefulness.  Sam looked at me in surprise and with a confused half grin on his face as if to determine whether or not I was really angry, and, perhaps whether or not I really just threw the lunch I made for him in the trash.  Though I wasn't completely sure why, I really was angry. "Ungrateful, unappreciative family," I thought resentfully to myself as I reflected over the last half hour of our morning together.  I was up at 4:30 to spend time with God and what a glorious feeling I had when I closed my Bible.  "God, no matter what happened to me yesterday, today is going to be a great day!" I affirmed with my Lord and  Savior, but it was less than two hours into the day after that when I exploded in an angry torrent over an unappreciated ham sandwich and baggy of peanuts. What had my day come to now?  It started with loud complaints from my seven year old over the scrambled egg breakfast I began to prepare.  "Mama, I don't want eggs," Ashton declared in an intolerantly whiny voice.  "Well, it's what I'm making, Ashton," I firmly replied, and at that moment Sam walked in with a request for oatmeal rather than eggs.  Simultaneous to this was Ashton asking me to get his school clothes for the day, to which I responded by telling him I was busy with breakfast and "you'll have to get them yourself this morning."  "But, mama..." the whining recommenced.  Meanwhile, Sam stood leaning against the chair talking instead of helping as I grew frustrated over having to prepare two different breakfasts, two packed lunches, and a weather appropriate outfit for my son - all at the same time and against the moving clock. I simply couldn't listen to anymore complaining as my already fragile emotional state threatened to crack.  I just wanted to hear something, anything, from one of them that would ease my building tension, but when it never came I grew angry, resentful, and mean - until I didn't. 

Let Your Light Shine

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It seems lately that God is leading me through muddy waters of humility and murky clouds of submission, but while I used to find such stops in life repugnant and frightening, I now feel a calm peace because I see through my lenses of eternity rather than my physical eyes that see only into the world.  Having said that, however, I, like anyone else, still have to wade through the mud and squint through the fog before I can reach my place of inner peace and trust.  This past week, for example, I was near melting down as I surveyed prospective living accommodations in Long Beach.  As soon as I pulled up to my stop and looked around I was ready to back out and head home, but I decided instead to stop a woman walking with her dog and ask for information. After inquiring about the neighborhood's general safety and activity, she let me know that I would need to keep my things locked up, because "we do have some break-ins," and that I didn't have to worry too much about the local drug dealers because "they pretty much keep to themselves."  Though she also reassured me that she had no qualms about taking her pooch out for a 1 a.m. potty, I simply couldn't move my thoughts past the peaceful drug dealers and not so uncommon break-ins - so I began to pray.  I told God I would live wherever He told me to live, but that He would need to give me an extra measure of trust in His protection because in that moment I was questioning His methods.  It was shortly after this and much more prayer when I realized that the light He has called me to be in the world will not shine brightly in an already lit room; it will shine the brightest in the room where the lights are off.