We grow up (typically) seeking the approval of other people. Our parents celebrate our little accomplishments so much when we're younger – our first step for instance. When we get older we're so used to the attention and the approval that we continue taking bigger steps so we can get it. For some it's grades, graduation, college; "the normal stuff". But it seems that for other groups it's not as innocent. Getting the good grades doesn't work anymore. Getting an F doesn't even work anymore. "Will they notice if I stat doing drugs? If not them, will it be someone else?" We start looking for the attention elsewhere. Instead of turning to our Heavenly Father whose capacity for love is endless, we turn to the friends that will pay attention to us when we drink or smoke. Or we turn to the boyfriend who'll listen.
Why not go to our Father? I know it doesn't seem the same. The comfort I get from Him is everlasting and never something I end up regretting – but comfort from other people is instant, it's physical, and that makes it seem so much more important. My grandma died (B.C./before I got back into church). The day of her funeral I was extremely depressed and at the time I didn't know any better, so I turned to Damarcus: the fling that wouldn't take a break from trying to get in my pants – even on the day of my grandma's funeral. And it's not his fault. But... at the time I got the superficial comfort of someone's meaningless presence rather than the reassurance that I would've had from the Lord.
We all know the scriptures - "I will never leave you or forsake you" and lately those promises have been golden for me. My mom is considering moving away from my brother and I and it's been forcing me to run to God. At first I was freaking out. Who's gonna take care of me? But He is all that I need. He can provide for me better than my mom could ever imagine.
Today I was getting graduation invitations out to family (finally) and they didn't do it anymore. They didn't look at me with sparkles in their eyes and marvel at my big step. I called my grandma for the first time in years and she didn't even remember me. I had to say "Terry's daughter" to get the response "What made you call?"
And it was just another moment where I was getting caught up in that desire for the applause. Whenever I start to worry about what people think about me I recall Galatians 1:10
"For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men?
For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."
So, who cares if my aunt isn't proud of me anymore. Who cares if y grandma doesn't wanna talk to me. Do I seek to please men or God? He is the only one that can truly give me congrats, that "well done" because He is the only one that has seen me go through it all.
These thoughts led me to Psalm 94:19
"In the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul."
Psalm 94:22
"But the Lord has been my defense
And my God the rock of my refuge."
When my rock can watch me use the strength He infuses me with to rise up in the storm and conquer it then who cares about the ones who haven't been there?
I love my God. He is all I need and all I want.
I'm falling in love with my God. :]
"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:37-39
Maria's translation: absolutely nothing can separate me from the love of God.
