He > I

Talk about one crazy, roller coaster week! It started out as the perfect week with everything going right, then in a matter of seconds I was stressed out of my mind. It's really funny how fast that happens. Finally, on Thursday, I was able to clear through some of the things that were causing the stress. When I got the time, I sat down with one of my favorite books to do some reading. This book is My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. If you have never read this, I highly recommend it!

In this particular chapter that I read, Chambers is describing our responsibility as Christians and where our loyalties must lie. He says that we are to be a "friend to the bridegroom" (John 3:29) and when we start living our lives for other people, we are out of God's will. The part that really "Biblically pimped slapped" me (as me and my friends say) said,

"When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ,
you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you
begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle,
don't try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times
stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus
Christ...We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God's will
and saying, 'This person should not have to experience this difficulty.'...One
day that person will say to us, 'You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow
Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."

Wow! That is enough to make any Christian stop and determine the role that they have been playing in the kingdom of Christ. Sometimes we try to help people out of their difficulty and claim that it is "how God is using us". That is an assumption. We think that our role is to make the world a better place by removing any hardships. But as soon as you become a Christian, it gets harder! When Jesus called on 12 men to become His disciples, He did not promise that they would create world peace. In fact, He warned them many times that they were going to be persecuted for even conversing with Him. They accepted this challenge as "friends to the bridegroom" and went on to fulfill their purposes..."to go and make disciples of all nations."

All of this isn't to say that we shouldn't be there for others when in need. The point Oswald Chambers is making is that God is the one in charge and people need to learn to rely on Him, not other people to solve their problems.

Anyway, this has been what I've been thinking about this week. On a positive note, I found a dollar on the ground the other day and I was pretty ecstatic! And only 1 week and 1 day until I meet my new nephew, Wesley! If you talk to any of my friends, they can tell you that my whole family is dying to meet this sweet little boy! I got him 2 new onesies that I'm really excited about, especially the one shown below :)

That's about the extent of what's going on right now. Hopefully I will start blogging more :)

My Utmost For His Highest

I figured that since all of my siblings blog, I MUST be missing out on something....well, not really, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try :) I'm just me. A simple college student trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I've been blessed to go to a great college (Go Bucs!) and that God has given me some great friends. Even more, He has opened up some amazing opportunities for me just in the 7 months that I've been here. I started a few weeks ago as an RA here and so far, I love it! But I know that with this responsiblity, God expects a lot from me.

Honestly, that's something I have been convicted of lately. I got so busy that I forgot the real reason that I am here and the reason that I have even had these opportunities to begin with. I went to Elevate, which is an on-campus college group, on Thursday and the speaker was talking on the topic of being single. His main point of the message was that being single isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, being single is so much better than being in a rushed, fake relationship. But while we are single, we don't need to worry about who we are supposed to be with, except for Jesus Christ. He is our first and foremost relationship and our devotion needs to be to His ministry, not our own. I know that me and my friends are called out on this a lot. We hear stories all the time about husbands and wives who met in college, so we feel like we need to be on the lookout for our future husbands. We've had discussions that go along the lines of something like, "Oh! Look! That could have been him right there, holding the door open for me!". When we look back on these times, although they are funny, we feel kind of foolish. Mainly because we realize that God will bring us that man one day in His perfect timing, not ours.

So basically, my new goal of college is to do my best, make great friends, and do God's will for my life. And one day, when I meet the man that God has for me, all I know is that He better love Jesus as much as I do!

"But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me." ~Psalm 13:5-6