All my cares

Cares Chorus

I cast all my cares upon You

I lay all of my burdens down at Your feet

and anytime that I don't know what to do

Iwill cast all my cares upon You

All of this last week I was being constantly challenged to cast my cares at the feet of Jesus. There are certain things that I have been constantly thinking about that have almost brought me to the verge of tears while in class. There have been times when my heart felt crushed, shattered, and broken. I felt like I was slowly and mercilessly being pushed to the ground and stepped upon. The worst thing about it was that since I was struggling so inwardly, nobody could tell I was going through this hardship. The only one I could turn to was God.

What was amazing about this last week was that through my inward anguish I came to find peace and joy in trusting God with my troubles. Throughout the week I would be thinking about something that was hurting me and then soon after I would be encouraged in this area by something brought up in a class or chapel. My walk as a Christian has never seemed so applicable to my life. For the first time ever I have experienced true comfort by simply giving up my sufferings to God. I had to come to the point where I told God that I could not handle it anymore and that I was going to let Him take care of it. Simply reminding myself in any situation I found myself in that God has a plan and a purpose in everything that happens brought a true sense of peace to my life. In the midst of the storms of my anguish I found shelter in God, who is my stronghold.

In my Job class especially I have been challenged repeatedly to give praise to God in ALL circumstances; whether they seem to be good or bad. I seem to struggle more with actually examining my walk with Christ regardless of the circumstances I find myself in. I've found it incredibly easy to just assume that when things happen to me that I perceive as being very good God is blessing me because I am following after Him. When life seems good I want to be even more aware of my relationship with God so that I may not walk into temptation or pride.

There is so much more that I might share with you that you may more completely understand my anguish, but I share this so that you may understand how God is comforting me and how you also can find complete security in Him. May God's name be praised: in heart sickness, in happy hearts, in physical pain, in healthy bodies, in troubled souls, in rejoicing souls, in exhaustion, in vigor, and in all things.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Who am I?

Who am I to be loved by the God of the universe?

Who am I to be saved from utter desolation?

Who am I to be able to call God "Father"?

Who am I to be declared righteous before God?

Who am I?

I am nothing.

HE is everything.

The more time I study and reflect on the Word of God and call on His name in prayer, the more I understand that I am truly nothing and God is everything. As a sinner I am a cursed man and fully deserve to be snuffed out by God. He is holy, righteous and completely perfect; it would be perfectly just for Him to destroy me. However, He is also loving; He wants to save me from myself.

So who exactly am I? I am one of the Redeemed. I have been brought back into fellowship with God. The price of this was the death of Jesus, who is the Christ, on the cross and His raising from the dead after three days. Through the work of Jesus my old sinful self has been done away with and I have been brought into new life in God. There's nothing I did or can do to ever deserve this relationship I now possess. The Bible clearly shows, through the course of history, that God has always been the initiator in man's salvation. He ALWAYS is the one who saves us. There has never been a man who has first called on God; God is the initiator.

I am a very prideful young man. I am so quick to take pride in my many merits. How foolish am I? God is the one who has blessed me with the very things I take pride in! Instead of giving glory to Him I naturally take honor for myself. May I realize every moment of the day has been given to me for the sole purpose of glorifying God. I believe that pride is the root of all other sins. Pride says that I am more important and I want to do what I want to do. I pray that God will transform me into a humble man so that I can life His name above all else.

I was a sinner dead in my sin and on the path to Hell. I was as a blind man who was falling and reaching out for something to catch my fall. God caught my hand that was outstretched and believing that He could help me up.

Who am I?

I am loved and because of this I love others.

I am saved and because of this I thank God.

I am His adopted child and because of this I cry out to my Father.

I am set apart and because of this I give honor to His name.

I am nothing.

HE is everything.

Tick tock goes the clock

Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone-
as though we had never been here.

Psalm 103:15-16 (NLT)

Dan Falls, the Dean of Students, spoke today in chapel from this passage in Psalm 103. He talked about how the time that we have here on earth is incredibly short. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we have plenty of time to do whatever we want/need to do, but in all reality we have no time at all. As Christians, we are called to be like Christ and we know from the Bible that this takes time. When faced with the problem of having almost no time to live and needing time to be like Christ most Christians choose one of two options. They either give up because it is obviously impossible to be like Christ in the short time we have or they strive to do everything necessary to be like Christ even though they know they will fail. There is, however, a third option.

In my last post I talked about what I have been learning from the Bible and how it has been changing me. Remarkbly Dan spoke today about how we can be changed by looking at the image of Christ. There's something remarkable that happens when I hold Christ up and look at who He is and then look at who I am. This is the only way to become more like Christ in the short time we have. It doesn't matter how many good things I do or how many character faults that I correct in myself; I will still never be like Christ until I look at Him for who He is and rely on Him to change me from within.

One thing that really hit me during chapel was that I was living the life of the person trying to live the Christian life because I knew it was what I was supposed to do. I failed all the time and never saw any real growth in my life. I now understand that I was trying on my own power the whole time and had never fully submitted all of myself to God. Building a relationship with Jesus brings me closer to Him, not doing "Christian things" (however good they may be).

Well, the time is now. I possess but a blip of time until I die and this time should be filled with reflecting the glory of God! Nothing else matters. Every day, every hour, every minute, and every second that I have is more time to look at the Son of God and let him transform me into a likeness of Himself.