character, the prodding ground of God

“Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.”

This statement couldn’t be more true. What I’m finding is in the context of deep personal relationships we find the ground that God prods on the most thoroughly to work on our character. For me, this is happening in my relationship with the students in my direct sphere of influence that I’m trying to develop as leaders, my relationship and living with my roommates, my relationship with my boyfriend Ben, my relationship with my co-workers.

One characteristic all of these have is proximity. All of these relationships are in the context of a close, physical space. A close, intimate relationship. All of these relationships resemble a crucible of sorts. A crucible has best been described to be as a set of circumstances we have entered that ultimately changes us. I recently read that quote above and it confirmed the bigger picture of what God was doing in my life and trying to teach me. It allowed me to see the spiritual value in the everyday circumstances and situations giving me grief. You know, the ones we feel like our lives would be so much better without. But lately, I've seen how much these are changing me and shaping me. More into the woman God created me to be. As I've been thinking about this quote and the context it was shared in, but also as I'm seeing it directly intersecting with my life right now, I've been thinking, really, any situation that calls me to confront my character has enormous spiritual value.

When we’re living life up close and personal with people, where there is a commitment level that is binding, a house, a lease, a relationship, a leadership team for the whole year, a job… we have no where to run. We come face to face with our brokenness and our humanity. We realize once again that we are not perfect. That we do not possess the ability to lead perfectly, to love perfectly, to operate meetings perfectly, to minister perfectly, to lay down our lives perfectly.

To even entertain the thought is an absurdity.
But this is the bar I find myself deeply saddened I can’t clear.

Even though I know in reality I am human and therefore not perfect, that I am broken and in desperate need of a Savior, sometimes our hearts reveal we are really believing that we are not. That we can be the little savior of our own universe, that we can be perfect, that we can do it all on our own.

Yesterday, something really struck me. I’ve been seeing how my relationship with Ben has been refining me from day one. I’ve known how living in close quarters with people and my last roommate situation created a space where there was true intimacy, honest, pain and growth, but the newest thing that came to head was the feeling of inadequacy with my leaders.

Balancing personality conflicts, balancing differences of opinion, balancing between sticking to an agenda and pushing the meeting along, while at the same time allowing for breaks and for conversation and connection times at the beginning and throughout, balancing letting go of responsibilities and giving others experience even when it falls short of my expectations, learning when the teachable moments are, learning more about my own inability to ensure a meeting with always be safe and healthy and that we will deal with and address conflict and confrontation in a healthy manner.

All of this, forces me to face my own stubbornness and pride, my own selfishness and hatred, my own bitterness and sin.

When you look at it square in the face, you have to call it what it is.

But it’s not just good for them to learn it’s okay to feel uncomfortable or it’s okay to feel stretched. It’s good for me.

It’s forcing me to throw everything once again upon God and ask Him to lead and guide me in these situations. For admitting and acknowledging my utter nothingness before Him, and that I can’t do relationship with ANYONE, without Him.

:::

Yesterday I had some time and space to deal with the weight of all these things. It was my Sabbath and day off, and my morning started off with a heavy heart. I was really excited that I’d get to spend some solitude time later with God, at my favorite place, but I also knew I needed to face my hurt and my pain and figure out what to do with my responsibilities with leadership development.

I came to realize that the purpose of those meetings with my leaders and even more of the purpose in us being as a team and me building into the lives of younger leaders is more for their own personal leadership development and character development.

I had to face that I needed more of God’s help because I was at a loss.

There’s a huge difference in my job between ministry and leadership development. Ministry is one thing, but developing leaders is an entirely different beast.

Because you are dealing with people who have personalities very similar to your own: leaders who are strong-willed and have all the same “dark sides” as you do: stubbornness, pride, think they know everything, think they can do anything and everything, etc. So being in authority over leaders possessing these qualities is nearly impossible.

It requires a strength that borders on the heroic. A strength that can only come from Him.

Yesterday as I was crying out to God about these things and feeling like a failure because I have always had good, healthy dynamics in my leadership teams and I was trying to act like it really wasn’t affecting me, these words caught my eye in Beth Moore devotional,

“God would rather hear our honest pleas for more of what we lack than pious attitudes from an unbelieving heart.”

Wow and ouch all at the same time. This brought comfort yet tension all at the same time. I slowly began to uncover my sinful, unbelieving heart regarding these issues more and more to God. And found Him once again, plowing away, lovingly and tenderly, at the fields of my heart. Bringing more and more ground into His hands, allowing Him to meet me there and find Him desiring to take me to those deep regions of the heart, those areas of the field, I'd rather not touch or plow through.

:::

When I took this picture above few weeks ago, and another shot here, near a farm in Hartsburg, Missouri, I don't know why this scene struck me the way that it did, but it represents so much. The vast openness of the field, the blue horizon, the land stretching as far as I could see, but more than that, the field had been freshly plowed through. I connected with that image. Reminded me of so much of the things that were currently taking place in my own relationship with God.

But this picture is now my desktop and reminds me not so much of the work being down, but the One who holds the plow. My loving God. Who is near, who is present, who is with me.

Yesterday, I was reflecting more in the last week and how I had seen God working on my character throughout and all of those situations and circumstances suddenly took on incredible value.

I recently read,

“God’s will is always for your sanctification.”

It is always about making us more like Christ. I’ve been reading a book about seeking God’s will and a book about relationships and what intimate relationship and marriage is really about, all of them are saying the same thing, it’s less about being happy and more about being holy. God is less concerned with our comfort, but because of His great love for us and His desire for us to live in a beautiful, full relationship with Him, He is more concerned about our becoming more like Christ and thus experiencing more of Him and thus relying more upon Him. For apart from Him, I can do nothing.

Amen.

So in this, I can rejoice. For He brings these situations and these things in my life so I can know Him more, so I can understand and know more of His character and His unfailing love for Me. For I can trust in His unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation, I will sing to the Lord, for He's been, He's been good to me.