The faith place

Fall has finally graced us Oregonians with it's presence during this last week, and it's making everything soaking wet and freezing cold. I don't particularly mind it though, because there's something about bundling up for your daily run and getting to breathe in the fresh, crisp fall/winter-esque air. Not that I'm running much these days, because you all know the story: work, organic chemistry, MCAT. It's getting old, isn't it? It's all I do, and if you're tired of hearing about it, let me remind you to think about how I feel about it. The other day, as I was picking up my giant stack of textbooks that needed to be brought with me to campus for studying, I had to consciously remind myself that I'm laboring for the Lord, otherwise I would have broke down and cried right on the spot. But I didn't.

And that's just it. No matter how boring, exhausting, and old it gets, you just keep going because you know it's something that's beyond you. In fact, it's not even really about me anymore - it's about those people I'm going to be able to help once I finish med school, it's about that plan God has for me that I'm determined to fulfill, it's about everyone else but myself. And most importantly, it's about Him and not me. Because if it were about myself, I would have quit by now under the weight of all the pressure and found a boring, day-to-day job that would have saved me from taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. But something inside me tells me to keep going when things get tough, so I picked up that stack of textbooks, threw them in my car and hauled them to campus to study.

I know, none of it makes sense, does it? But like my pastor said in his message the other day, it's much safer in the water during the storm than it is in the safety of the boat with your buddies, because Jesus is in the water, not in the boat. And that faith place is much safer than the safe place because in the faith place, you're desperate to rely on the Lord. (see Matthew 14)

And like divine intervention would have it, a friend sent me this scripture and I about fell over: "God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to His eyes." (2 Samuel 22:25 MSG). You see, God often asks us to do things that we perceive as impossible when we allow Him to have a say in our lives. And He's asking us to do them because 'it's not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit' that they will be accomplished. He's asking us to step out in the faith place so He can accomplish something through us, not so we can accomplish something through ourselves with our own might and power. So this faith place that I'm currently treading through, I'm falling more and more in love with it than I ever thought possible! Let Him take you there.