Growth

So I don’t know how this will come out, but here goes…

I suppose the last few weeks, even few months have been packed with events, some big, some small.  Some could be considered life changing, some have been hardly a ripple on the radar screen.  I say all that to ask myself a question, do i see myself growing, am i moving forward in life?

Part of me would like to say yes, I have grown a lot over this summer.  I would like to say that I am not the same person I was when school ended.  I would hope that I have grown in faith.  I would hope that I have learned to truly put faith in God and trust him, to believe and trust that he loves me and that I am truly his child.  I would like to think that I have grown in my knowledge of God, that I have learned a little bit, a very little bit, more about his infinite character.  I would like to think I have learned a lot about grace, mercy, and love.  I would like to think that I have made progress, which is what I long for.  I would like to say that I feel more prepared to be in ministry.  I desire to move forward so bad, but then I actually look at my life.

I still struggle with doubt, I still fight to believe that God wants me, that God loves me even when I mess up the same way for the thousandth time.  I still struggle sometimes to believe that I am even truly his child, because I look at my life, and I see so much crap, so much junk that my eyes are filled with it and I think surely I can’t count myself as his child, I am to much of a mess.  I realize how little I know, how little I am prepared to do what I think he is calling me to do.  I don’t think I know the first thing about being a youth minister, and the fact that in a year a church could be entrusting me with the spiritual health and growth of the students blows me away.  I am so inadequate, I am so not ready for this.

But then, I read in Joshua, particularly the first few chapters, and I read how God told Joshua, several times, to be strong and courageous, and that he was with him.  And then I think, that is being said to me.  God is with me, and I should be strong and courageous, and ready for him to guide me to whatever he is going to guide me to.

I think, maybe faith is not supposed to be this incredibly easy thing that I can have figured out and could write a paper on.  Maybe faith is this beautiful thing that I get to work through daily, maybe it is this thing that seems very transient to me, that is here one day so strong and then the next day I am crying out to God and asking for a visible sign, asking for another way, because faith without seeing his hard.  Maybe it was meant to be hard.  Maybe, faith was mean to be faith.  Maybe I am not meant to have proof, maybe I am meant to trust in a God who sent his only son to die a death that I deserve for giving anything more attention that I give to God.  Maybe faith is a lesson for me that I need to realize I don’t have it all figured out, and that the only sure thing is that I need to trust the only thing worth trusting.

And then I think, maybe its not about how much I know.  Maybe it is not about me being able to read and understand Hebrew and Greek and finally be able to unpack Calvinism.  Maybe I should be reading my bible to fall deeper in love with my savior who I don’t deserve.  Maybe, this book that I cling to and try and pull out facts about God, maybe it is there to show me how utterly desolate I am, and force me to cling to the only thing that is worth knowing, and that is that God loves me and sacrificed everything to be with me.  Maybe it is not about knowing, maybe it is about redirecting my attention to Christ.

And then I think, no, I know, that this thing is not about me.  I realize that this thing he has called me to do, teaching and preaching and loving on students who need to know that Jesus loves him, maybe it is less of a calling and more of a gift.  Maybe instead of being burdened with how inadequate I think and truly am, I will realize that my God is bringing me along for the ride.  He is letting me be a face to his message, a voice to bring the message to those he longs to be with, not that he needs me to be that, but he says “Come with me, I want you in on this.”  Again, maybe it is about showing me how I can’t do this, and how all I can do is cling to him and trust him to be the guide.

Maybe the growth and progress I have been longing to see, maybe it is in the fact the that the things I want to see myself confident in and growing in, all point me back to his endless power and grace.  I want to see myself faith filled, with a knowledge of the holy and a heart that is ready to take him to the world.  But maybe in reality my true growth is realizing that I am not capable of any of that.  Maybe in reality, I need to be much less concerned with growth I think I should see in myself, and much more concerned with focusing on him who brings about the growth, who makes me capable, who gives me the ability to have faith, and who is the only thing worth trusting.  Maybe growth is realizing that I am not seeking him enough, not focused on him enough, and getting after it.  Maybe growth is realizing that what I think is growth is really focusing on me and not on him.

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you;my flesh faints for you,as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  Psalm 63:1

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”  Matthew 7:7