I started doubting that I was really following God, because I thought to follow God I had to have a heart for the nations and to go overseas and do missions. But that itself isn't everything, I've been acting as if wanting to go overseas and do missions and healing people and having gifts of the Spirit makes people more mature or spiritual than other people, but God humbled me by putting me in that position. I started to question if I didn't have any of those things, am I truly following Christ? But everything that He did pointed me back to the heart. What is the gift of healing if I can't use it for love? Same for wanting to go overseas.
This week was hard, not just cause of community but because Rez week was over. It was hard because I lost the passion to go out in the name of love, and not in the name of myself. But it pointed me all back to the heart, where was my heart in all of this?
Something that I have always preached is that "It doesn't matter how good you are at ______, as long as you have a heart for it God can use you" but I have completely forgotten that truth. I have made the gifts and the works bigger than the Giver. A big testimony to this is leading one song at Epic Large group - I struggled with it so much the days before because I am not a good singer. But I felt as if God was calling me to explore this calling into music. I obeyed in the end, and I knew he was pleased. I had so much peace after. It really is all about the heart.
There's a difference between mourning and wallowing. Mourning is mourning the loss of something. Wallowing is self-pitying myself. And I was hard-core wallowing this whole week. When Shannon asked me to say one good thing about what God has been doing in my life, I couldn't come up with anything. But Thursday, He gave me the resolve to fight this self-pity phase. In the shower, He revealed to me why he removed community from me. It's because I have been too prideful about the communities that I have had. I have been losing favor with people lately, which has been hurting me because that has been one of God's most obvious gifts to me. But even then He showed me that He was sovereign, that He would give me community (whatever that looks like) and favor with people back on His own terms. And man, I really learned to just sit with Him. When people say "sit in His presence" I would be like "...okay. but i feel kind of stupid". I always felt as if I had to do something, but when Hannah was playing just 30 seconds of a song, I could feel that God wanted me to sit with him. So I just dropped every worry and just sat, and it was probably one of the sweetest 30 seconds I've had in a while.
When I ate with Ashley, she gave me this passage. I've read it before, but the Lord gave me a new understanding of this.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Marthaopened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10: 38-42
This blog post is really for myself today, to remember where I have been with the Lord this week because it was such a jumbled and messy week in the beginning. I have cried more this week than the past 6 months combined. But God gave me back my resolve to fight with Him. He is definitely too good to me
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