Through my own walk I have learned that during my "valley" times God is trying to get me to a place of completely trusting Him with the situation I am in or He is trying to get some mess out of me that is hindering my walk with Him. Today we shall focus on some of my mess! Believe it or not I have learned to have complete Joy when the Lord reveals to me the ugliest parts of me. It reminds me that I am perfectly imperfect!!!
I have written before that I struggle in the area of my career and I very often question God as to why it seems like I am the only one of my law school peers not practicing and not using the skills that I have been equipped with in my current position. God has repeatedly told me that it is not yet my time and I have learned to trust in God's timing in this area. However, today in His perfect love He has decided to reveal to me the why it has yet to be my time.
I am reading a book called The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg that focuses on spiritual disciplines. This morning I read Chapter 7 "Appropriate Smallness" The Practice of Servanthood. In today’s society no one wants to think of themselves as being "small." We want to be the best, brightest, smartest, flyest, etc. We all want to be the first and no one wants to be the last. In fact this sort of behavior is celebrated and the person that wants to remain in the background is often ridiculed and chastised for not being more assertive and aggressive. We may not want to admit it or honestly may not even see it, but this way of thinking is a form of Pride and for me it answered the question of why it was not yet my time.
You see for me becoming an attorney was accompanied by a sense of prestige. I had reached a certain "level" in life and it was to be celebrated. I can remember telling people that there was no way that I would even date someone that was not on my "level." I felt that being an attorney placed me on a pedestal and now I had this image that I must uphold. Do not get me wrong I know that graduating from law school and passing the bar are great accomplishments; however, God placed me in this position so that I could serve others using this unique gift that He gave me and not for me to feel like “look at me I made it!” Being a follower of Christ is all about living a life of humility. It is the anti-look at me life.
God saw the pride in me when I did not see it in myself and there was no way that I could help to advance His Kingdom with that on the inside of me. I was not yet ready. Instead, He placed me in position where I had to completely trust and depend on Him. I had this degree, but I had no money to even pay for my bar study course or to pay any of my bills during this time. I passed the bar, but still had no money to put gas in my car to get to the few interviews I was fortunate enough to be granted. And for some strange reason ALL of those interviews were followed by rejection letters. When He finally blessed me with a job and I was no longer broke, I was ashamed to tell people what I did because of the image I felt I had to uphold. For a long time I have felt like the work that I have done since passing the bar is so far beneath me. It’s like I am doing these mundane task day after day and I am like “really God? This is not what I stayed up countless nights studying and crying for.” “When is it going to be my time to shine God?”
You see I thanked God for being in a rare position of being under worked and overpaid. I trusted God and knew that He had me in this place for a reason but never did I imagine that that reason was because I was prideful. Unbeknownst to me, all this time God was just trying to show me that because of my title and achievements I had placed myself on a pedestal to where I felt that I had reached some arbitrary “level” and was beyond doing mundane tasks. I learned from the book that it is in doing the mundane tasks that God helps us to overcome that prideful spirit that tries to keep us from becoming conformed to the image of Christ. God revealed to me that pride destroys our capacity to love, it moves us to exclude instead of embrace, it moves us to bow down before a mirror rather than before God and it moves us to judge rather than to serve. All this is completely contrary to the ministry He has placed on the inside of us as one of His followers. Christ himself is the ultimate example of how to live a humble life. Although He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to, but instead He gave up His divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. - Philippians 2:6-11. The Lord himself said that He came not to be served but to serve.
In using the gifts that Christ has given us we aren't to look for status or clout and the only image we should be concerned with is conforming to the image of Christ. We are to use or gifts to just help people. It is when we realize that our life is not about us and who we want to be and what we want to do that we will be free from so many of the burdens we have placed on ourselves. I felt the weights lift off me this morning and my prayer is for you all reading this to experience this as well.
Until next time....Stay tuned to see what else lies Beyond The Pretty!
