Light in Darkness

Entry #3 on Doctrine Day

These thoughts came to my mind as I sat in class and listened to my professors and listened to the questions of others. It was like in that hour and 50 minutes I heard God and felt him closer than in the rest of the day so far. Funny... It just struck me now as I was writing that that in the darkest time of my day, He shows His light to me most... Hmm, how incredibly kind.

When I was thinking about one of my classmates asking me how I was doing earlier and not following up, I was tempted to feel kind of bitter. But then God, perhaps as an admonition brought this thought into my mind: "You see value in people in their works, how nice they are. But what about my work done for them?" I wrote this down and thought, yes, I am thinking of these people as less because I see them working so hard with not as many struggles as I have and I just think they are robots. What kind of human is like this? Then this leads to a downward spiral of thinking less of them as human beings, as God's children. This is so wrong...

Then I thought, what is the common denominator between all the people in class that I don't like? That I look down on? It was as if I felt God say, "Those you don't like are the ones you talk to least." I feel that I have been given a gift to find the humanity in all humans. In several conversations I have a tendency to find what is hard for them, something that I find that we can share. But when I don't talk to people, I am unable to find these things.

Another thought I had regarding my lack of Bible reading that morning despite the fact that I had skipped class and had an extra hour and a half to read and spend time with my Healer was this: "You don't read the Bible because you don't believe that I will speak to You." He's right. I do believe that he can speak to me. I just don't believe that He will, and that unbelieving sin leads to the sin of inaction in spending time with the only One who can satisfy me.

In regard to the tendency in my thinking to be upset in class because I feel like the small notes on the board don't accurately depict God and tend to be like picking apart the parts of a fire in a way in which the fire can't burn any more afterwards. And I want God's glory to burn for all it's worth in my heart! But I felt Him saying, "You are not looking at me on the board, just a representation to help you understand a bigger reality." This helped because I found the kindness of the statement led me to repentance at my anger at the inanimate object of the writing on the board.

God then brought back the thought of why I don't like some of my classmates. It was as if he said, "What you need is to see is why I love them. God, please show me. Show me that their value, just like mine, is in You and You alone. And because You never change, Your value never does, and therefore, theirs does not either.

Then my mind drifted to all the work that I did not want to do. I felt comfort in the thought: "I am able to give you strength for what you don't want to do." That dispelled the lie that I couldn't do it.

I then thought about how I do my homework and how I have high expectations for myself and how I play to the tune of the professors as well. I felt Him say, "Even in doing your homework, you are trying to please man. How can you please me?" God, I want to please You and for that to be my goal. But please, show me how I can do that.

I also was hit with the joyful but painful realization that a prayer I had prayed with a friend while in Texas over spring break was answered. It was the prayer that God would help me not to read into things with a guy here because I was fairly sure he just wanted to be a brother in Christ, and I told myself that I wanted only that too. But when he told me and another friend just before break ended that he was praying about talking to a girl about pursuing her and then had that conversation with her, I was crushed. He had given me hope, not on purpose, but it was there. As I sat there in class, I lifted up a frustrated, almost angry cry to God: "You've given me a gift of a brother when I wanted something more." But it is a gift. This is my crucible. He is taking away literally all that I take joy in. This is a severe blessing.