Yearning

As I am in a new city, a new school, meeting new people, and experiencing new things, I cannot help but reflect on my college experience so far. In many ways, it was an extension of my time in high school. I was still living at home, going to the same church, keeping the same routine, serving in the same places.

I feel that while I have been content and joyful in my service, I am yearning for more. I look back and see the many ways I have been involved in service: Covenant Harbor, Awana, mission trips to Mexico, various church boards, Sunday school substituting, and many other random things. I have been pouring myself into my home church and finding ways to serve that are familiar, comfortable, easy. I am pleased and proud of the service God allowed me to do. But even through this, something was missing.

Though I was giving what I thought was much to God, I was not open to receiving all that I should have. I poured out to others from what was mostly my own well, and allowed God to fill me back up with the regular Sunday sermon or worship session. But that filling would only fill me enough to pour back to others, and I was left with a passive engagement with my Father. I found myself going to class and work (where I would shy away instead of being bold in my faith), serving in what ways I could, but in reality becoming a zombie in a routine of stagnant life. Yet through it all, I was content. I felt no remorse or longing for anything different - I found comfort in the comfortable, familiarity in the familiar. I was letting myself stop at the shallow surface of a once-a-week in-depth sermon that would just fill me spiritually for my week, occasional quiet time with God when I felt like it, scarcely dusting off my Bible, and a lukewarm prayer life. I was busy, but on the inside I knew that was a lie. Hours doing more homework than truly necessary, on the computer, or in front of the TV were how I filled my time instead of putting myself out there to meet new people, make new friends, or spend time with God, which is what I really should have been doing.



And yet, I was (and in some ways still am) content to put up those barriers and bury myself in the simple, easy, familiar things. As I sit here, I say I am seeking to be who God wants me to be, but I am truly desiring that - to surrender myself, completely lose control, and embrace wholeheartedly who God wants me to be? Honestly, I am fearful, doubtful that the person God made me to be is not who I think I can be. Can I really do all that? Me? Maybe I know (or at least am starting to see) His plans for me and who He is making me to be, but I am stalling and making excuses because I am not decisive, because I fear judgment, because I doubt myself, because I fear responsibility, because I doubt the many things people say that they see in me. These were all the things that were going through my head over the past two years, and I was content to let them be unanswered questions. I didn't feel the need to seek their answers, yet they were ever-present.

Looking ahead, I realize that I cannot let myself be content, familiar, comfortable any longer. My prayer is that I continue to work on my fears and doubts. God has been teaching me a lot over the past few months, and I am excited for the challenges I see in my horizon! I know it will not be easy, but I am now willing to let things be difficult. Let that which was once stagnant become refreshing. Work to make the uncomfortable now comfortable. Familiarize myself with the unfamiliar. And through it all, yearn after God - for it is only through Him that I have my breath, my very life!