I’ve been so excited for what God is doing in the innermost parts of my heart lately that I thought a post would be incoherent, but I think it’s time to try.
God is…so real and so alive inside of me that I am surprised I believed Satan’s lies that I don’t shine God’s light. Lately, that has been my biggest, confusing struggle. As God has been growing my heart since I shared my last post, Satan has really been doing a good job letting me believe his lies that God hasn’t really been using me that much. No one has been impacted by you at all. Why do you even try? What is it that you’ve done to make your blog get so many hits? Is it really glorifying God or you?
Satan is pretty good at what he does. The thing is, MY GOD IS BIGGER AND STRONGER
I found it extremely difficult to understand why my last blog post was touching so many people who already knew my story. Why am I getting Facebook messages from people who definitely know my story yet read my post with tears streaming down their faces? Maybe God has just grown me so much in being honest and vulnerable with the people around me that I’m just less affected by the responses. I just brushed it off figuring that God was just doing something bigger than me that I couldn’t understand. I didn’t realize at the time though how true that was. He is doing something MUCH bigger than me.
I am part of a student group that is a task force of Love146 that fights to end child sex trafficking and slavery. We had our big benefit concert on the last day of March, and it just reminded me of what God has been telling me a lot lately. How we are called to be a light to this world. This world of such darkness, of such tragedy, of such sorrow. Knowing the tremendous depths of some of the darkness of this world, like child sex trafficking, I can only go to sleep at night knowing that God alone can begin to understand how the hurt and broken feel. I believe that God is holding this world in His hands, and I always pray that He will continue to be their comfort, their joy, and their peace. It might not seem like I am directly being His hands to the broken children I fight for who are enduring such darkness, but because of God, it is direct. My prayers move His hand. Plus, I CAN be His hands to the children of my Sunday school class. I CAN be His hands to the people He’s placed along my path. I CAN be faithful to all those things. Not through my strength though, but only through Him who does not have the word ‘impossible’ in His vocabulary.
The image of light is a powerful one. The smallest light can penetrate the deepest darkness. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” -Matthew 5:16. I think my problem is that I’ve been trying to consciously shine. Letting myself worry that I was not being faithful enough. Then God started to reveal His glory again to me. To remind me that it’s never been about me, it’s always been about Him. No one else but God deserves the glory. The accumulation of all the praise I can muster throughout my life will never be enough to give Him the glory He deserves, but that does not mean I shouldn’t try to the fullest of my being. Think about the sun. How brightly it shines that you cannot even look at it very long because of its brightness. That is EXACTLY what looking at God’s face is like. It’s so incredibly glorious and beautiful that all I can do in response is bow humbly at His feet, marveling at His majesty and His goodness.
For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. -2 Corinthians 4:5-7
That is what happened with my testimony. I was over-thinking it all, somehow wanting glory for myself while also realizing that nothing I said was of me. Now that I’ve typed that, it makes no sense…anyways. I am nothing but dust, yet He raised us from death to become co-heirs with Christ. Revel in THAT. Isn’t that freakin’ incredible?! Now get this. He LIVES INSIDE of us. The Creator of all the beautiful things of this earth, the King of all days, the Prince of Peace, the One who is not of time, the Friend who sacrificially and recklessly loves us all, the Father of all…I could go on. When you know that, how is it possible for you to ever doubt His goodness? His faithfulness? His LOVE?
We are called to so much more than we dream for ourselves. I thought I was dreaming big with Him. Believing I would become a doctor even with the kind of GPA (it’s going up slowly though!) and academic record I have was a big enough dream. I never really thought about how my sharing about my academic struggles could have long-term fruit.
Then God showed me something.
He told me that I have absolutely no idea how typing on this blank page every now and then has brought people closer to Him. Inspired people to know Him better. Now that I say that, I remember one sister telling me those exact words once. He said that there are people on this campus who happened upon my blog and now know Him more deeply than they have ever before. There are many people on this campus who need to hear this testimony, and He will provide the opportunities for me to speak to crowds.
He said there will be lights all over this campus that are shining because of the light I shone. I had seen a vision of fireworks recently on this campus, and I thought that just meant there was a coming explosion of God’s light. Then He told me that I was one of those fireworks. I am one of those lights.
I found that I had been focusing on how limited I was to make an impact. That’s why I couldn’t understand why people were so touched…I was saying in my head and not my heart that it was God. I was COMPLETELY missing the point. It’s not. about. me. JESUS who lives INSIDE of me is doing it all. He is speaking through me, a broken vessel, to bring all those He loves closer to Himself. What an honor to be used like that. To be a light upon this Hill.
God, this world needs your light. This world so desperately needs it just as I need it. Oh, but God, what an honor it is to be used as your vessel to shine on others. May the light I feel in my heart pulsate and grow into an all-consuming fire that I can’t contain, that I can’t control. So that You can’t help but shine through me. That I would follow wherever You go, because there is truly nowhere else I’d rather be. I would have no life if I wasn’t with you.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. -Matthew 5:14
