God is Working

Today’s sermon and everything about today from the prayer meeting, to the woman’s devotionals, and just being in the midst of this seasons of what seemed like a wall of unmet expectations and hope, I feel rejuvenated. I feel more spiritually alive today than I have in the past few months.

If I were to tell you how I was doing with God, I would honestly say pretty good. I was in the word, in prayer, trusting God, but looking back I was also really distracted. Not with bad things, but just distracted. Transitioning into PT school, worrying about the workload and being liked and making friends in the middle of pandemic, wanting to be in a relationship with Isaac and start dating, news of my grandpa being in the hospital and just feeling the weightiness of his salvation, even the underlying frustrations of this pandemic, not being able to go to church in person or hanging out with friends. I was in a place of deprivation, sounds intense but I think I was in a place of just being confused but still trusting God or trying to? But at the same time slowly but surely, in a very subtle manner, the things I would pray for became the things I put my hope ( aka idols of my heart) in and God began to be more of a genie in a bottle granting my wishes versus pursuing the things of him and remembering that at the end of everything I have and do, He is whom I’m pursuing.

Today’s message was super timely, it literally encompassed everything I’ve felt and experienced in the past 2-3 months. Again just being met with a wall of unmet expectations and frustration due to all the things I hoped for were being taken one after another. Nope, friendships will come slowly in PT school. Nope, no relationship with the guy. Nope no change in your grandpa’s heart. Nope, no going to church or hanging out with friends outside of PT school. And I could just feel the hopes that I clung to , which I thought I was holding to loosely, began to slip, I kept finding myself gripping tighter and tighter. God has been good throughout, constantly reminding me of his goodness and faithfulness and sovereignty, yes. So I think trusting God with my friendships in PT school became easier and it’s crazy 4 weeks later, I realized that my lab partner is an answered prayer, I absolutely love that girl. But I think the one hope that has been really hard to let go is the hope of being in a relationship. I think over the past week, God was slowly showing me how much comfort and hope I placed in the guy. When we decided not to talk, a wave of loneliness crept up and I began to try to fill it with other people and other conversations, trying to message and reply to people and initiate conversations just to stop the lonely feelings. But even in that I realized that there is definitely something deeper in my heart that I’m unwilling to do, turn to God versus people for my source of identity, love , comfort, etc. Not like I was mad at God but I really found myself looking to lesser things for meaning and value. I didn’t realize it but in that week I didn’t want to go to small group, I didn’t feel like I needed to be in the word. I was slowly drifting. When you aren’t running to God, you are naturally drifting.

Anyways, fast forward to this past Wednesday when I quickly realized how much time and energy, socially, mentally, spiritually I invested in the boy thinking it was going to work out. I found myself left with these desires to still want to date and just feeling like at a fork in the road, like now what? I have used all my mental, spiritual, and emotional investment in the guy and now that the hope is crushed, where do I go now?

Which led me to my devotionals in Matthew where God used the story of Jesus sending out his disciples out to do His work, it was a reminder that my role is to be one who goes out by the power of Christ , representing Christ wherever I am, without payment and engaging in both spiritual and physical needs ( Matt 10). So I realized that I’m at place where a lot of my desires have been set on lesser things and that God in his gracious way of saying No to a lot of my wants was a way to turn me back to himself, showing me that he is better. I prayed confessing I needed help to change the desires of my heart because all I want is to find my worth in a boy and in people around me.

AND THEN this morning happened! It was a culmination of themes and words God kept bringing up to cause me to just feel spiritually alive and experience His goodness in the midst of my disappointment. First it was Ellen’s testimony that demonstrated how God placed obstacles and things in her life that seemed unloving were not against God’s plan but were apart of his plan. She realized that the hardships and challenges she faced were very much so a testimony of how God knew her deepest insecurities and idols and that God allowed her own plans to be frustrated so that she could grow in sanctification ( or becoming more like Jesus and to see him as better). She used the example of the Israelites and how when God promised them the promise land, they also encountered the Amorites who seemed much bigger and an obstacle of God’s promise. They had the choice, to trust God and obey into the land and trust that God’s got them or to turn away and even approach God’s word with doubt and skepticism. They chose the 2nd because they trusted the eyes of their flesh versus seeing it with eyes of faith. And that stood out because I realized how easy it is to see my situation outside the promises of God’s goodness ( he withholds nothing good) and faithfulness for our greatest good, which is knowing and be known by Him. So it caused me to really ponder on how God’s “no’s” in this season were meant for my greatest good. And I think it’s crazy when Jean prayed for me because she prayed specifically for me to know God’s love and to be like Mary in Luke 1:38- Mary said to God , “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”. She prayed for me to have that faith and that complete surrender. And it hit me because of how God reminded me that my purpose is to be his servant and not of man or anything else I was placing my hope in outside of himself.

Which then leads to just the encouragement God gave me in the prayer meeting! We went through a variety of Psalms but the two that stood out had “desire” in it. It was Psalm 37:3-11, “ Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”. And I was like dang, sometimes it’s easy to think that he will give you the exact desires of your heart presently, but I think what I realized is that as we delight and focus on God, he will replace the lesser desires of our hearts and put His desires as our desires. He’ll change them to align with his, not necessarily grant every one of them like a genie. And then just the promise of how God will satisfy and fill the desires of those who fear him. ( Psalm 145:14-21. Again it’s just promise that this cup of desire will be filled by Him with himself. It doesn’t get better than this when God answers your prayers in His word, it is awesome!

But God did not stop there, his word in the sermon was amazing and literally summarized. But in short the sermon was about in the midst of our frustrations, unmet expectations, the sins, the things that are not of God, the hopes and desires we have etc, you have a choice to either sit in complaint and a grumbling heart or you can thrive and not in a worldly sense of getting everything you want, but in the midst of our disappointments, how do we thrive in Christ.

So the main points: We can thrive in Christ when we truly believe in faith that God is working. God is moving and working in the background despite what we see with our eyes. And it’s again, it’s not saying that God is working to meet our desires, although he cares for them, but what God cares about is bringing His goodness and His glory to fill the earth. Which brought me back to seeing how easy it is to lose sight of pursuing godly things versus the idols of my own heart. So first thing that challenged me was, do I want the things God wants, just the bear foundation of what I want matters. Then 2. In light of trusting in faith that God is working, He has a promise in Ch2 v 2-3 that talks about how even though it may seem that God is slow, he has an appointed time. And that was a word for my soul. Because often even in the good things I want, I’m like Lord hello? Where are you? Why isn’t this happening right now! Like a relationship right? Or just relief to the struggle, it’s easy to think God is not working because He isn’t acting in our timing. But I think Pastor Ray made an awesome point that God is sure to fill his promises, but according to his timing, not ours but we can be sure that He is faithful to complete his word. And the command is to wait on the Lord which requires much patience paired with much trust. So the question that it led to is how do we even do this, it is living by faith in Ch2V4. And then he went into a list of how this looks like, it’s hearing God’s word in faith, praying prayers of remembrance of God’s faithfulness, singing and being in community. But I think at the end that hit home was when he said that Jesus is better and that God allows famines and takes away and He withholds things the treasure we want so that we are in place to know that Jesus is truly treasure and better. And I’m like yes that is what I feel God is teaching me right now. And God is in the midst of showing me and rearranging the desires of my heart. “ You will never know Jesus is treasure until you have no treasure”. And that’s when I was like Lord this message was for me. I hit this place of disappointments and hopes not being met so that I had to come back to Christ and see that he is truly better. And then now I feel like God gave me a word in Psalms to see how God can truly satisfy and how He will be the one who will change the desires of my heart as I delight in him. It seems like God is reminding me that it is a process and that it is his doing, not my own. I mean these revelations were literally from God. Anyways, I am feeling super filled and thankful to God and praise God for showing me so much and reviving my soul this Sunday. I was not expecting God to work this deeply in my heart through this morning. I am thankful I didn’t go to the laundry mat and try to multi task rather than giving and sacrificing time to be with God.