I've grown up in church, hearing all the stories from the Bible over and over. I've attended Bible conferences where I was challenged to personalize my faith. I've held Bible studies and read books that tried to make real world connections to Scripture. I have every resource at my disposal to dig more deeply into my relationship with God, yet I still feel I have so much to learn.
When I first entered college, I had an idea in my head of what I thought it would be like. I tried to imagine the lessons God would teach me and assumed that most of my journey in college would be forging forward in my career path. However, I quickly learned that God had so much more to teach me and He was preparing my heart for a different kind of growth.
Over the course of almost four whole semesters, I have been challenged, overwhelmed, hurt, disappointed, frustrated, and stressed. But, I have also been rewarded, overjoyed, encouraged, comforted, and at peace. It is through the times of struggle that I have caught glimpses of how deep the work that Christ is doing in my heart is going.
At a Christian college, it is easy to say the right things and appear to have it all together. Yet, God has consistently humbled me before Him, seeming to say, "but wait, there's more." I have stepped forward thinking I have learned a lesson, only to be flattened by a massive wave looming larger than what I can handle on my own. I've had to learn to trust God differently than I've had to in the past. I've had to learn that the stories that I grew up hearing over and over actually do apply to my life in more ways than I could have imagined.
I recently looked at the story of Esther from a completely new perspective. I found that much like her, God had put me in a place I didn't want to be for an unknown purpose. I was inspired by her faith and her willingness to walk forward in obedience. The call to go deeper continued, pushing her further and further into a complete reliance on God.
Similarly, in the story of Joshua, God calls His people to march around a fortified city fourteen times over a period of seven days. They could have complained and refused, but God rewarded their obedience by allowing them to conquer Jericho, even creating a new seed in the line that His Son, Jesus, would eventually come through.
In Isaiah 6:8 the verse says, "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am! Send me."" The cry to be sent is one that echoes in my own heart as well. When God calls me deeper, it is painful. It is difficult. I often don't want to listen.
However, as I'm pulled deeper into God's Word, I find I'm also pulled deeper into who He is. My heart is being conditioned to be more and more like Him, allowing me to experience the struggle with the knowledge that He is redeeming me and teaching me. His grace is sufficient to hold my bleeding heart as He walks with me every step of the journey. Every depth further, He is there.
"For I am sure that neither life nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39
