For Breakaway, an on-campus Bible Study I volunteer for, we have to write a devotional one week out of the semester for the rest of the team to read. I think it's a super cool idea! Isn't that what the body is for? To learn and grow together in love? Anyway, I figured it may relate to some of you bloggers out there so here's a copy of what I wrote for this week's devotional:
So the first couple weeks of school I was completely stressed out. I felt I had overcommitted and had too much to do with less time than anticipated. Then I realized some of my classes were going to be harder than I thought. It dawned on me that I would seriously have no time for sisters. I would literally have to cut time with some of the girls I care about most in the world in order to get everything done.
Guys, I never stress out. I think faith is actually one of my spiritual gifts because I have a really sincere trust in God’s sovereignty and I don’t think any of my problems are too big for Him to handle. So now are you totally confused about how these two facts add up? Because I seriously had no idea what was going on.
I realized it was because I was separating the secular and sacred in my life. On top of that, the secular part of my life was overtaking the sacred. I never get anxious, so when I woke up at five in the morning basically having an anxiety attack, I started praying hardcore.
I then picked up the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan (highly recommend it and he’s also one of the people who’s going to be at Passion and IM SUPER PUMPED). Anyway, the chapter was basically about trusting God (He has a sense of humor because He knew exactly what I needed). These are definitions Chan came up with:
Worry- implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what is happening in our lives
Stress- says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control
It re-convicted me about stress and worry. The more I read and was reminded about Truth, the better I felt. I could not believe how this book was feeding my soul. I had been neglecting my spirit by not pursuing eternal things, but temporal ones. Even though I had been ‘seeking’ God, I was not really letting my soul and my heart soak up anything I was learning.
I realized that although I was praying regularly and reading Scripture daily, I was treating my relationship with God as a checklist instead of a pursuit. I could hear God telling me, “You are not loving (or pursuing) me with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” That very often quoted verse had never made so much sense as it did that night.
Since then, I have seriously filtered my life through whether or not anything was glorifying. Instead of doing my homework constantly in order to be in control to get A’s, I picked up the Word. But this was out of a desire instead of obligation. I am now working on making my whole life sacred because none of it should be secular.
In addition, God revealed so much of His love to me. He loves us enough to push our boundaries with Him. He loves us so much that He doesn’t want us to stay the way we are. He wants us to grow in love, in knowledge, in wisdom, and in character. God basically humbled me by showing me that yes, I have extreme faith, but my faith had limits. There was a point which I thought God didn’t have control because I did not trust Him. My limits were tested and now I am strengthened. Working spiritual muscles is the bomb. It is such a beautiful thing.
Testimonies are pretty much one of our best tools because God wrote them and He’s pretty cool. This is part of my recent testimony so I hope it speaks to you guys. If not, God is still glorified by working through my life so I can’t help but share it! :)
Have a great week,
Amy
