Life has been awesome. In the last month life has moved so fast and for the most part I've had nothing to complain about. I've genuinely been happy for the longest amount of time that I can imagine. (The life lesson just hit me. Right now.) I've been happy and loving life and everything was going IMMENSELY well. I got engaged to the most amazing man who loves the Lord. We found a house the first day that we went looking, we have a pastor to marry us, I have a dress that I am in love with that I found at the first store of dress shopping. I was loving living the engaged life with planning and lists and websites and everything that comes with the fun of being newly engaged. School was good- stressful, but good. I was honestly enjoying life for one of the longest periods that I could think of. However (and this is what just hit me) I was living life all by myself. Sure I was surrounded by people- friends were coming out of the woodwork and facebook friends are at one of their all time highs- and I still was attending biblestudy, CRU, overflow, Freshman Council, having a regular "quiet time" and all of my other "Christian Activities" but where was I really spending time with the Lord?- (Please note that my "quiet times" were often spent distracted or just lost in a trance with my "to-do" list spinning in my head).
Last week I got some news that completely made part of "my world" as I knew it come crashing down around me. Respecting those involved, I will not go into any detail about it, but in my head I knew that God had a purpose and a plan for what was happening, but I did not want to accept it. I didn't want to know that it was all going to be ok. I was so angry and I stayed that way for about 2 1/2 days and still I am dealing and coping with what is happening. During this process I am slowly beginning to realize that I am back to trying to live my life the way that I want to and becoming selfish again (Shocker I know). It's this continuing cycle that I wish that I could jump off of and start going in another direction, but I just keep continuing on.
Do you ever wish that God would just give you this crazy passion to rely on Him? Yep, it's a often one for me. I sometimes try to blame God for not giving me a desire to give everything up to him. How freakishly selfish is that. I want to reap the benefits of fully chasing after the Lord, I just don't want the work of actually doing it. I want the prize without having to run the race. I want to want to run the race- and not only that- I want to want to do the training and all of the hard work before the race. I want to be able to KNOW that I will run the race well.
I know that this will only come with the power and self discipline that the Lord has fully equipped me with. I just need to take hold of it and actually apply what the Lord has given me to my life. If only I fully grasped how simple that was.
"For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7
