Sunday, November 23, 2008
Will I serve God for nothing?
so lately i've been struggling a lot with having a lot of questions and very few answers...i guess really that isn't a horrible thing it's just really hard for me to accept that fact that i won't always get a definite answer to my questions...anyway one particular one i've been struggling with has been how to switch from trying to follow God's will for my own benefit to trying to follow God's will simply to glorify Him. I feel like everything I do is centered around whether or not i'm comfortable or i'm happy. Even college...i'm so worried about what major i should be - what job i'll get when i graduate - but really why should it matter. Do i really believe that God can't use me no matter what job I have? of course not...then why do i worry about it so much. It's not that I'm worried that i won't be glorifying God...it's that i'm worried that i won't enjoy glorifying God or doing God's will won't be easy or painless. Pretty much all this worry is focused on me and my life and my goals and my happiness. At The Midtown Bridge Today, Larry spoke about Job. He brought up two big questions something around the lines of: Will a man serve God for nothing (if he loses everything)? and Is God still worthy to be served if you lose everything? I think those are incredibly important questions because honestly I don't think I could do what Job did. The littlest bumps in the road cause me to doubt God and wonder where He's gone and why He's not fixing the problem. One huge verse for me was Job 2:10 "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" I don't know a lot of times I think I yearn to know God really well...to really really know him as a friend and father - to know Him in a way I could never know friends I see every day. But then I think about it, and I think that it's going to hurt a lot if i want to really know Him. It's just like any relationship...I can't expect to know someone incredibly well and really get them without working at the relationship and going through struggles and ups and downs....why do i expect a relationship with God to be any different...I want to "dig in and know the heart and integrity of God" I want to serve him for nothing... or at least I want to want those things...what do you want?
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2 comments:
Answers don't come easy. All of us go through this at one point or another. For me, it has been "slaving" away at college and not using the time I have to try and reach people for Christ. I let school be my idol, the most important thing in my life. I realize this, and I think a lot of us do. But we don't know how to change or we refuse to do so. We're afraid of putting other people, and most importantly Jesus in front of our education and career. If we truly did that, our grades might drop, but we would live joyful and fulfilled lives. I have the faith that God would reward. However, I'm so tied to the world, tied to the expectations of friends and family to succeed at a high level. The solution I have come to is to do better with the time I do have, because God will use you wherever you are, no matter how much you try to throw in front of him. As a child of God, he loves you and will fight for you, to get inside you and make a change each day. Every day brings opportunity to serve and be used by Him. But we... I miss it. So often! So pray that we can live in the Spirit and see each day what God puts in our path.
This is Ches chiming in.
I can definitely relate to what you are talking about. I have to remind myself every day that it is God who I am serving and not myself and not my ideas.
The thing that is the easiest to forget is how God is using all things to bring about His purposes. It goes against all appearances and logic, but we trust it to be true because we know Him and we know what He has done for us. When we have doubts about problems that arise in our lives that is because God is showing us where the weak spots are so that He (not we) can fix it so that we may become more seaworthy vessels. In that sense it is a good sign to be concerned about the object of our faith and what is guiding our lives because it calls our attention to those things. At that point the only thing we should and must do (although we can do all sorts of foolish things) is trust that He will give us the strength to do it. Yes, it will hurt to be confronted with our true self as we get closer to His light, but He has the power to make us more beautiful to replace what was there before. We can trust that He will bring us through any suffering that He calls us to because He is well acquainted with suffering Himself and will fill us with the same joy that led Him to endure the cross - the joy of Communion between us and Him. We can trust that He can take any poor decisions that we make and turn them for good because He already has done that with those that we made before we surrendered to Him initially.
I don't believe that we are called to serve God for nothing - we are called to give up everything we try to hold on to and then we gain Him. Trusting in the promise that He is our reward is not self-centered, it follows directly from believing who He is and being who He wants us to be - people who love Him.
I want to be able to constantly remember that I am pursuing a relationship with Him - all forms of service to and sufferings for Him are simply pathways to relating to Him. He has these things laid out masterfully, all that I need to do is keep my eyes on Him and let the waves be the unexpected ground I walk on to progress toward Him.
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