Inside out.

Today marks the end of my time at my first job out of University. The feelings are bittersweet. I also don’t love it when it rains and sad things are happening, it somehow makes it harder. My time at Hydro has been nothing but positive, and it has been a time of learning to rest in Christ, to trust and grow. And even if I didn’t know everyone to the deepest degree, it’s hard to leave behind the people and situations that have been present in your life for the last year and a half. Even so, I’m learning to accept that change is good, and formative, especially of my trust in God.

Next Monday marks a year of great growth and change. A year ago I started on a journey of learning to love Steve, and with it came a lot of change. Through it all, God has been so visibly faithful. I am learning to love a fellow servant in Christ, and in it, God is loved above all. That has been the most important thing for me to see, that it feels impossible to care more about my partner than Christ. While we love one another, our individual lives have been set aside for God and have been dedicated to Him first. In many ways, it’s comforting to know that Steve will never love me more than he does Christ, and the same goes for me. That in itself is a tangible, visible working of God, a revealing of Himself.

The more God reveals of Himself to me, the more I see that His purpose for life uses the physical world and its scenarios to build up trust that He is at work in me, in sanctification, and a relationship with Him is being grown. What I face in life serves to show me how Christ is exhibited in me and through me. Existence is the refining fire.

In the fire, it feels like God is picking through layer upon layer of illusion, stripping away my perceived value of life’s “stuff”, and my pride, so that in the light of Christ, none of it really matters. What I once believed to be crucial and important to living, careers, marriage, etc, when tested against the face of Christ and knowing Him, is slowly dwindling in priority and value. Everything is put in its proper place in the hierarchy of my heart.

Granted, I don’t see it these things as at the bottom of the totem pole just yet, and you can tell based on how much I struggle when faced with change, and dealing with taking a “risky” career move, while on the brink of getting married. But I know this isn’t risky. God does take care of His servants, and even in “failure” I’ll see that my life is in good hands. The point is that I’ve got nothing left to control except where I’ll put my trust.

When I think it through now, the practice of placing my trust in God has to be ongoing. Trust happens today. God can be, and is exhibited in my life today, and not in some future date, if only I would trust in Him and in His Spirit in me. My concerns about this job are regular and recurring, but even with this big situation happening, my faith must also be exercised in my daily concerns. It’s been slow for me to realize that my trust and relationship building are not reserved for the big future events, but for today, and for every day, big change or not.

I’ve been waiting for the new job to start in order to see how God will use it to show me Himself. And yet, even today, He is trying to reveal Himself to me, but I keep looking for something else. Yet, God is revealed through His children. If we’re looking hard, it’s time to realize that we will see God the Father, and His hand at work, through willing, transparent servants. 

^“15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, ¹⁶ was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles…”

Galatians 1:15-16

If we trust in God and obey, we see God the Father exhibited in our lives, visibly at work every moment of every day.

I’m scared to move on and change jobs, doing something I have no experience in, but the reality is my trust in God is being worked out in every moment. And at the end of the day, that’s what will last me throughout the years to come.