It has only recently come to my attention all the things that God has taught me this year. I guess this has to do with how the semester is coming to a close in the next two weeks. And how this also marks the close of my first year of college. What a journey it has been. It sped by.
1. I am blessed. Beyond anything I can fathom.
This is something I never want to forget. I take my whole life for granted everyday. I'm so entirely selfish. Yet God still loves me. Crazy.
2. Sometimes, even if you pray for something, if you don't truly desire for that thing to come about, it won't.
I guess this is something I should have known. Maybe everyone knew this but me. What you have to pray for is desire, so you can honestly want that thing and pray for that thing to come about. When praying in supplication to God, if your heart doesn't match your words God won't care about your words. It sucks. Sometimes it'd be nice to be able to fool God like we fool everyone else in our lives. But then He wouldn't be God.
3. Sometimes, just cause you feel a certain way, that doesn't mean that the person you feel that way about feels the same way about you.
Excuse me while I try and remain vague on this point. I guess in this, I just learned that God can have bigger plans than what I see. His will outweighs my wishes. So sometimes He hardens people's hearts to accomplish His will. Even if the result has to break my heart for a little while. And by little while I mean two semesters.
4. Friendships are powerful things.
They will make or break your entire existence. A desire for fellowship and community is something God put inside all of us. Without it you can suffocate spiritually and emotionally.
5. Friendships are way more important than idle talk and gossip.
This is fairly self explanatory. But I've had to face this issue a lot this year. It's aggravating to say the least. Because no one wants anyone to talk about them, but they talk about others relentlessly. Why are we all hypocrites.
6. God can even work through our downfalls to make His will come about. Even in our pride.
Let's just say God used my friends and I to bless a fellow student last night. And I didn't even want to do it, because I was prideful and selfish for about 10 seconds. In hindsight, I hate myself for ever thinking that. The only reason we were able to bless him was because of God's orchestration. Not of my own ability at all. To God be the glory. Always.
7. You may think you want something. But sometimes that can be settling, and it's not until you see what you really want that you realize how much you didn't want the first thing.
Again, this is self explanatory. So I won't go into detail. But this has to do with God's divine providence and my small view of the world and life. And how God knows what He's doing.
8. Patience and humility are hard things to learn. And they have to be relearned daily.
9. Loving others is easy with God. But it also is a discipline that has to be relearned daily.
God has been teaching me how to love His children in a way I never have before. With a sort of reckless disregard for my own feelings or desires. When you view people as God's, it's so much easier to love them and care for them in a way that begs urgency, that begs for me to pray them into eternity with Christ whether they like it or not.
10. I lean not on my own understanding, my life is in the hands of the maker of heaven.
I guess this is the overarching theme of everything I've learned this year. How God is so powerful, glorious, all-knowing, all-sufficient. And how, for this reason, I shouldn't worry about tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after. Or all the days ever after. He's got it under control. Even when I have no idea what my major should be or what kind of a job I'll have or who on earth I am going to marry.
--Oh, and I love United Pursuit Band. Their songs are straight up prayers. They speak all the prayers I didn't know how to voice previously.
