It’s surreal to realize I can no longer say, “In the next 9 months I hope to …” Time seems to be flying by faster than I’d like to admit. At the beginning of this year, somewhere along the epic 11-mile hike, Tripp said to us, “The end will come faster than you think. Time is really going to fly by.”
In the middle of traveling hundreds of miles I have come to realize how important it is to hold onto the present. So many times in life I have focused too much on the future. Where will I be, how will I get there and what will I have in my possession to show for where I am? Nowhere in that statement did I mention, God. More times than I’d like to admit I have focused entirely too much on myself, and have fallen privy to the idea I can amount to more without our heavenly Creator.
This past weekend Drew Hill, Youth Pastor and Worship leader of Church of the Redeemer, gave a beautiful sermon on discontentment. His words were convicting, powerful and put a real magnifying glass to how I am living life.
I have come to realize more than ever, I simply cannot do everything on my own. Life experiences forced me to become independent and unconsciously put a barrier between every aspect of my life. Attachments, vulnerability and candid expression have been lost in this sea of self-doubt and separation. Am I so arrogant to believe I have a better plan than the God who loved me, saved me, and allows me to live this beautiful life?
One of my very first YL talks I referenced the gospel of Luke, and the story of a sinful woman. The woman comes up behind Jesus and the partygoers see the emotion that’s on her face. They see how she is filled with tears and as she gets down on her knees she begins weeping and weeping to the point where she is able to wash Jesus’ dirty feet with her tears. She dries them with her hair and she pours perfume on His feet. I think all of us can relate to this woman in some way. Many of us can relate to her because we have a reputation that haunts us just as this woman did. But maybe some of us, myself included, can relate to this place where she couldn’t even look Jesus in the face because of the sins she carried. And that’s why she came up behind Jesus. And some of us sometimes feel so unworthy to come into His presence because of our past. Just as I told my high school friends that day, I have to remind myself, there is no sin, past, present or future that separates us from the love of God.
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