Thoughts from a Third Year

Sometimes I wish I were 4 years old again so that I wouldn't have to worry about the tedious things in life.

Such as school and career choices and the complex relationships you encounter.
I'm only two weeks into this school year and I can already see how hard it is going to be by how hard it has been.
Temptations lurk around every corner. By God's grace I have been strong even to make it through each one, not without error but with forgiveness and patience at the end of each trial.

Questions flood your brain...
How do you tell the people you love and care about that you've changed?
That you're not the same person you once were.
That you can't and don't want to be like that anymore.
Your flesh screams out for it.
But God's call on your life is so much stronger.

These two weeks have been a greater roller-coaster than I could have imagined.
I knew it would be hard. Believe me... I did not come into this year naive.
Did I think it would be this hard?
I suppose I did, but I think when predicting the situations that would arise, I forgot about the emotions that are attached to it.
Don't get me wrong. Choosing to do what is right always feels good.
But feeling like you're letting people down does not.

Like distancing yourself from friends who are a bad influence on you and they don't understand.
Or telling someone you care so deeply about that you cannot speak to them anymore because it's too hard to be around them.
Sometimes I wish I had just never met them because it would be so much easier than saying good-bye.
But you know its right.
It's like I see things from the outside in.
For every situation I encounter, I see the two paths that I can go down.
One that is good and God-glorifying. Another that will give me satisfaction: yes, happiness: yes, but not what I need.
I constantly have to remind myself that the only path that is an option for me is the one that seeks righteousness and gives honour to God.
[Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. Proverbs 29:25]
Easier said than done, considering we have the "people-pleasing auto-pilot" practically sewn into us at birth.

So how do you do it?
How do you tell people that you care about that you've chosen something else?
Something greater.
Something they don't understand.

It's not choosing another person. It's choosing God.


"But He said to me, 'My Grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

His Power is made perfect in my weakness.
His Grace is sufficient for me.
What more could I ask for?

"For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway." - Mother Theresa