Grace abounding & godly ambitions

Every time I blog, regardless of the topic I begin with, I always end up talking about the crazy ways God is growing me and His continual faithfulness and goodness. So I figured this week, I would do just that. Because, let's be honest, who's better to talk about than Jesus? No one. That's who.

The Lord completely rocked my world last Sunday. There are very few moments in my life when I can remember feeling that convicted and yet immediately feeling so at peace and restored by His grace.

It all started with my heinous stats class and facing the very real possibility of not receiving a passing grade. And I'm not pulling the typical UCLA student "I'm-going-to-fail-this-class"-and-then-get-a-B+ trick. (By the way, I haaatte when people do that. Please tell me I'm not alone?) I mean literally, I had no idea if I would receive credit for the class. Scary, right?

So there I was, sitting in church, listening to Tim Chaddick speak about our need to realign our ambitions with God so we can be strategic for Jesus (find the message here). Then I started to feel really uncomfortable. Like the squirmy, God's-trying-to-tell-me-something uncomfortable. I couldn't understand why. Tim's message ended, the worship band started to play, and then I lost it. Tears galore. Within a 10 minute time period, God shed light on so many lies I had been believing about Jesus and my relationship with Him. I like to call them "Jesus epiphanies."

First off, I had believed this lie that my ability to perform in school was directly correlated to my relationship with the Lord-- if I failed my class, I had failed God. (Blech, I hate even writing that, it's SUCH a lie.) The issue with this lie is 1) I was assuming, in my own pride, that I was capable of pleasing God in the first place and 2) I was acting as if Jesus' sacrifice on the cross wasn't enough to save me.... I had to try to please God in my own strength.

Secondly, I had convinced myself that there were very few things in my life I hadn't given up to God (bah!), when in reality, I really hadn't given anything up to Him. During the last few weeks leading up to Sunday, I had been praying for God to convict me of something because I didn't know what I needed to work on. (Like I said, pride up the wazoo!) Well, God answered that prayer. But instead of a little nudge of a conviction, I received a full-on body slam.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending to the spiritual and emotional exhaustion: healing. Healing by the Word of God, prayer, and godly encouragement from some people I love a whole lot.

"... work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

Philippians 2:13-14

"Therefore also we have our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing Him... For the love of Christ controls us... He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf."

2 Corinthians 5:9; 14-15

So good. So good because it's not of me, but of Christ. It's not my will, it's His. It's not the way I live, but the way He lives through me.

♥