The first instance I am going to discuss is the time that God changed the my plans from doing a Young Life year long internship at Young Life camp to doing Discipleship Focus the summer after I graduated from college. I thought this year long internship was where God wanted me in that next year after I graduated college. I pursued this opportunity so diligently at the end of the spring of 2010. I did not know God had a different plan for me that summer and into the next year. God used one opportunity that didn't work and led to a greater one that summer.
At Discipleship Focus, I grew in my walk with Christ. I become able to trust God more quickly and with more things in the process of God revealing himself to me that summer. He made me aware that he is in control of my life despite what happens to me in certain situations. He helped me realize that his eternal good is to conform us to his image and have a deep, walk with his Son Jesus Christ. I went through a study called God's Answers to Our Deepest Questions that, throughout the study, helped me realize me spiritual bankruptcy without my relationship with Jesus Christ.
During the summer, I also grew in my walk with God in a small group of people that deeply cared me and my needs. We became like a family that summer united by what God was doing in our lives at the time. This constant community helped us push each other toward Christ in all that we did that summer. I also gained deep fellowship with the guys in my cabin since we eat together, hung out after work, and cleaned the cabin every week together. As my teacher in seminary Dr. Lee says, "we became a living, loving, and learning community."
In that next year, I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life but God had other plans for me and my future. I thought I was going to do into broadcasting but God kept closing down those doors or opportunities with each job I didn't get. I was able to trust and depend on God during this time in my life through the these things I learned in that summer at D-focus. Even though this was a very hard time in my life, God helped me realize that he was in control of my life at the time and I just needed to trust him more. Through this circumstance in my life, God wanted me to realize that I need to be desperately dependent on him with everything in my life.
The first verse that illustrates God's uses circumstances to conform us to his image is in Romans 8:28-29. Paul says this, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." God was working throughout those times in my life and had a bigger plan than I could imagine; to conform me to the image of his Son Jesus Christ. Another verse that illustrates God using a circumstance is the example of Joseph, he says to his brothers in Exodus 50:19-20, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Joseph acknowledge that God was in control of his hard circumstance in his life and God was using it for his glory.
God used that circumstance in my life to lead me to seminary and back to ministry. I feel that God gave me a wake up call in my life during that year. He helped me realize what my real passions in life are and how he wants to use for in my future.
We need to remind ourselves how much we need to desperately depend on God daily for everything in our life and abide in him. God is in control of any and every circumstance in our life. He can use any circumstance to conform us to his image. I as a Christian in my sinful, depraved, state cannot produce Godliness on my own, our God in heaven and earth has to be the only thing we depend on make in this life. The only thing we will take with us when we go to heaven is the depth of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
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