The Face Of...

In his speech, one valedictorian wrote: "Competition doesn't build character, it exposes it." I extend this argument, and in applying it to a recent area in my own life, I would have to say that Adversity doesn't build character; Adversity exposes it.

In the past few weeks, I have faced more battles and struggles than I have in my last three and half years at university. More and more I find myself looking outward and wondering what our role as Christians are in the world and what God asks of us in the deepest part of our hearts. And as a result, like He always does, He answered.

In the face of such adversity, however, I have let people see a part of myself that forever only I knew about. There are parts of me that are so stubborn, immobile even, and I know that this tenacity must also one day be tamed. But there's that other part of me that wonders where the line of compromise is, and where you ought to position yourself in relation to that line. What can you compromise on? and what are the things that you cannot because of your allegiance to God? In making a life-long committment to be a Christian, I was asked to relinquish ALL parts of my life, every single moment, every piece. And while I might not have understood what all those parts were then, what this life-long committment would entail me to, I gave my word and my heart. It was a pre-emptive promise, anticipating all the areas that would be revealed to me, one by one in the future.

Then the question remains of how you practically surrender your life to God. This past week, I had the privilege of eating with a friend I had not seen in a while. In sharing what God was doing in her life, she unknowingly answered this very question. As she talked about living the life of the Spirit, and Spiritual breathing, she reminded me of an analogy I heard many years ago at my first Summer Conference. At that time, Ed Weiss was talking about how he worked on a farm for extra cash during the Spring. Each Spring, one of the managers would hire him and his friend to remove heavy stones that would appear as the snow melted. Such stones appeared every Spring, no matter how many they removed the past year. In much the same way, the Spirit reveals new rocks in certain seasons of our lives. As we give over those areas which bind us, which hinder our walk with God, the Spirit reveals another set of stones. And this is how we grow.

I used to question how people could continue to come to the altar and rededicate their lives over and over again. I always thought that it meant that the previous rededication didn't work on a prior occasion. I felt it was counter-productive to the experience, and exposed a false promise. I see now that these responses are necessary for our walk with God. As the Spirit reveals more stones, new stones, in our lives, we must respond by bringing those before the cross. This is how we grow. This is how we walk with God. This is how His heart beats in ours.

To all those who have seen such raw moments in my life, moments where it is pure response and reaction to what God is doing in my life, I hope I haven't scared you off. I have never been this emotional or volatile before and I hope you know that you mean the world to me. Maybe I'm just learning how to respond appropriately to God, and not yet quite getting it right. Baby steps.