One Life

How is it going HCA, I hope you all are doing well and finishing through school strong! I am back one last time for the year. As I reflect back on this year of being with all of you, I just get reminded about how much all of you challenged me during spiritual emphasis week. Seeing all of you jump, dance and sing at the last chapel was one of my highlights of the year. I just loved how free you guys looked, that nothing could hold you back from having fun in the presence of Jesus. But as I think about that, I thought back to when I was in your shoes 5 years ago, I was not that free. I was so worried what people thought about me it restricted my worship. It became more about me trying to look cool rather than worshiping the one whos opinion really matters. This even translated to when I was on the worship team playing guitar, I tried to look cooler than I really was, therefore it impacted the way I worshiped God.

So as we look back throughout the year of Ephesians 4:1-6 being the topic passages, it is only fitting to end with one life. This comes from John 14:6 when Jesus said he is the way, the truth, and the life right after one of his disciples, Thomas saying that they will not know where to go once Jesus is taken. But Jesus gave them that answer saying that since they have known him, they also know the father, so all they had to do was look to heaven and follow what God was saying, and that is how they were to know where to go. These men and women who followed Jesus gave their one life here on earth to follow what God had planned for them. So my question to all of you that I ask myself constantly, what are we going to do with our one life God has given us here on earth. Are we going to continue to live in that freedom that God has given to us and follow what he says, or are we going to live in defiance of him? And I know some of you may be thinking, “you have no idea how hard it is to believe that God is there after all ive been through. Or I dont even know where to begin this journey with Christ.” But I know what all of those feel like, i was in your shoes at one point, I had the same struggles that I needed help with.

Life is a journey, there are alot of unexpected twists and turns that can throw you for a loop but it is your choice how you respond to it. Dont forget, Moses suffered too. He walked through a desert for 40 years with people who were ungreatful, who complained and who continued to look their own way. Moses said this to God “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me” (Nu 11:14–15). One of the greatest leaders was ready to give up because it was too hard. He also said to God to blot him out of the book of life, also known as the Bible Exodus 32:32. Jeremiah wished that he’d never been born, Jonah said that for him that death was better than life, Job lost everything he held dear and even Jesus sweated blood because of the stess he was under in the Garden of Gathsemane before he was taken into custody. Some of the people we hold quite high in christianity also felt the same way as us but they kept pushing because they knew that God had a plan that would work out in the end.

So i ask you again, after seeing the people above, what will you do with your one life here on earth? Are you going to strive to leave a lasting legacy by making earth a better place when you die than when you were growing up or are you going to get absorbed by the world and miss out on the calling that God has put on your life? There were many times where I could have given up, but I knew that I had to keep pushing through because I saw those men above and said, “if God can use them, why not me?” Because of what they did with their one life, it led all the way to The Life. The life that would come as a baby and grew up just as we are. The life that would show a way where we could know the truth of God and so we could recieve the Life of God. Everything that happens through our life teaches us something that can better us for the future but it is your decision to whether use what you have gone through and learned to better the world or to sink into it. God has given us this life for a reason, use it, change the world in whatever you may do in the future, God has a plan for each and every one of you, but in order to know where to go, look to heaven and God will show you.