Pastor Keith Tucci once said "You cannot keep appeasing people and giving part of your life to them when they do not have your best interest at heart."
This season I am learning what it means to have given part of my life to people who did not have my best interest at heart. It was a mistake that I have promised myself never to make again.
Of course we all make mistakes. And we all have stories of people hurting us. I'm sure we all have examples of giving part of our lives to people to only have them turn on us and throw it away. My situation isn't unique to life or perhaps even your experiences - but it's unique for me. This is the first time I have ever experienced walking through a season where I had trusted people with my life who I thought had my best interest at heart, but only to find out I was gravely wrong.
I will never be so naive again, nor will I ever let myself be deceived into trusting people with part of my life that I truly don't know. I was stupid at best and it was a mistake I will only make once.
In early July of this year, I began praying intensely for a vision I believed the Lord laid on my heart. I was thoroughly convinced the Lord was speaking. I prayed, I worshiped, I fasted, I pursued in prayer what I thought the Lord was calling me to. But three months into my time of prayer, the very thing I felt the Lord calling me to pray about fell through and I was left sitting with a journal I had filled with pages of my prayers and words of faith I believed the Lord had spoken, and a heart feeling completely betrayed, letdown, abandoned, burned, and hopeless.
Can I be honest?
I don't have a box for this season that I am in.
Every morning when I awake, there is a split second where I think perhaps this season of life has been but a bad dream and I am finally waking up from it. That somehow I will walk down the stairs and maybe my love for fall, for Christmas, the excitement for the holidays, for people, for local church, for the Lord - that maybe it will all return. But it is only a second before the coldness of reality floods in and I am reminded that I am wakening to the fact that indeed, this is my life.
This fall has been marked by letdown - both from people and what at times I feel is also the Lord.
These two events happened within days of each other and I guess my heart just isn't as strong as I thought it was. I consider myself to be pretty rational, fairly thick-skinned, able to handle my own, not really fazed by much. But I learned very quickly just how fragile my heart really is.
This blog is really just the easiest way of letting those of you who read know where my heart is at. Many people are so kind and loving towards me, asking me constantly "How are you doing Josh?" Many wonderful, faithful people who for whatever reasons, are all my biggest fans. People who shouldn't love me so unconditionally, but do. They call, they text, they email me to make sure I am doing ok.They encourage me. They listen to me. They have faith for my life even when I don't. They invite me over to their houses and even trust me, cynicism and all, with their kids.
The Josh this semester is quite different from perhaps the Josh of other semesters. I desperately wish I could just erase all memories of those who have let me down and just be "normal, happy, fun, not cynical Josh". But the Lord has not seen fit to allow such a thing to happen. Instead, I am learning to walk through a season where really, at the end of the day, the only thing I have that I can turn to is the Lord. And if all this... If all the disappointments, all the letdowns, all the frustrations and questions I have... If all this is just to teach me to rely solely on the Lord, may my roots go deep, my faith be built, and my heart strengthened as I learn to walk this out in Him.
I don't want to be a young man, a leader, a visionary, a follow of Christ who finds his strength, his identity, his worth, his fulfillment in people, status, or even the seasons of life he is in. I want to be marked by Christ. And this season, there is a lot of "not Christlike" things rising to the surface of my heart. May I be quick to let Him deal with me so my heart may be pure before the Lord.
This season I am learning what it means to have given part of my life to people who did not have my best interest at heart. It was a mistake that I have promised myself never to make again.
Of course we all make mistakes. And we all have stories of people hurting us. I'm sure we all have examples of giving part of our lives to people to only have them turn on us and throw it away. My situation isn't unique to life or perhaps even your experiences - but it's unique for me. This is the first time I have ever experienced walking through a season where I had trusted people with my life who I thought had my best interest at heart, but only to find out I was gravely wrong.
I will never be so naive again, nor will I ever let myself be deceived into trusting people with part of my life that I truly don't know. I was stupid at best and it was a mistake I will only make once.
In early July of this year, I began praying intensely for a vision I believed the Lord laid on my heart. I was thoroughly convinced the Lord was speaking. I prayed, I worshiped, I fasted, I pursued in prayer what I thought the Lord was calling me to. But three months into my time of prayer, the very thing I felt the Lord calling me to pray about fell through and I was left sitting with a journal I had filled with pages of my prayers and words of faith I believed the Lord had spoken, and a heart feeling completely betrayed, letdown, abandoned, burned, and hopeless.
Can I be honest?
I don't have a box for this season that I am in.
Every morning when I awake, there is a split second where I think perhaps this season of life has been but a bad dream and I am finally waking up from it. That somehow I will walk down the stairs and maybe my love for fall, for Christmas, the excitement for the holidays, for people, for local church, for the Lord - that maybe it will all return. But it is only a second before the coldness of reality floods in and I am reminded that I am wakening to the fact that indeed, this is my life.
This fall has been marked by letdown - both from people and what at times I feel is also the Lord.
These two events happened within days of each other and I guess my heart just isn't as strong as I thought it was. I consider myself to be pretty rational, fairly thick-skinned, able to handle my own, not really fazed by much. But I learned very quickly just how fragile my heart really is.
This blog is really just the easiest way of letting those of you who read know where my heart is at. Many people are so kind and loving towards me, asking me constantly "How are you doing Josh?" Many wonderful, faithful people who for whatever reasons, are all my biggest fans. People who shouldn't love me so unconditionally, but do. They call, they text, they email me to make sure I am doing ok.They encourage me. They listen to me. They have faith for my life even when I don't. They invite me over to their houses and even trust me, cynicism and all, with their kids.
The Josh this semester is quite different from perhaps the Josh of other semesters. I desperately wish I could just erase all memories of those who have let me down and just be "normal, happy, fun, not cynical Josh". But the Lord has not seen fit to allow such a thing to happen. Instead, I am learning to walk through a season where really, at the end of the day, the only thing I have that I can turn to is the Lord. And if all this... If all the disappointments, all the letdowns, all the frustrations and questions I have... If all this is just to teach me to rely solely on the Lord, may my roots go deep, my faith be built, and my heart strengthened as I learn to walk this out in Him.
I don't want to be a young man, a leader, a visionary, a follow of Christ who finds his strength, his identity, his worth, his fulfillment in people, status, or even the seasons of life he is in. I want to be marked by Christ. And this season, there is a lot of "not Christlike" things rising to the surface of my heart. May I be quick to let Him deal with me so my heart may be pure before the Lord.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24
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