Exposed.
Over the past year I’ve experienced God reveal myself to me. The more I get to know him the more I get to know the truth of myself. As he reveals himself to me I see just how far I am from being the woman he’s called me to be. The more I know him the more apparent this gap becomes between where I am called to be and where I actually am. Every time I think I’ve seen the worse of myself, God exposes something even worse. The truth is that I will never know the depths of my brokenness. No matter how much I try, work, and diligently seek him, I am imperfect.
This past year, my relationship with God has truly deepened. He revealed to me and placed desire, calling, passion, and dreams within me. He positioned me in places I never imagined being. Two years ago I would have never imagined living in Los Angeles, sitting under the teaching I’ve sat under, and being enrolled in Seminary. It’s insane. I never had this dream for my life but over the course of 2 years, it has become my biggest and wildest dream.
This dream had also become my idol. The very thing that I never wanted (seminary & ministry), had become the thing I worshiped, unknowingly, deep in the depths of my heart. It had become the reason I wanted to grow, and the reason I want to be transformed. Everything I did for growth and transformation purposes was fueled by my calling and purpose. I needed to be perceived a certain way in light of the calling and I wanted it to be genuine but there was still something about this that didn’t feel genuine.
God exposed this. Recently, I’ve been stripped of some major things that I’ve placed my value in. I’ve witnessed God pause things in my life one by one. He’s pealed back layer by layer the things I’ve placed my identity in. Each layer pealed has left me feeling more and more exposed and, honestly, empty/pointless. I was beginning to see my heart in a way that I’ve never seen it. I saw pride on a whole new level, comparison, envy, greed, jealously, and malice. The thing that grabbed me the most was the emptiness I felt. I saw a hole in my heart that was being filled by the things God had blessed me with and not God himself.
“He was never exposing me so that I could see how much I need to grow, He was exposing how much I need Him”
SUGGESTED BOOKS
- The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
- The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders
Initially in this place, I responded by despairing and trying to fix myself. It’s been easy for me to try to read the bible more, pray more, and engage in spirit filling activities that made me feel better. Though these practices are good they are not sufficient, alone, to help fill me. Reason being is that my heart posture was not towards God it was towards fixing the problems and issues in my life so that I could return to life as usual.
I texted my mom all my feelings and frustrations. I told her I know God has a plan for me but it just feels annoying. I expressed feelings of being unseen and feelings of impatience with growth, and lack of readiness. Her response to me shifted my entire perspective. She said “Kim, serve God.”
Through these three words, God has brought me to a revelation that He was never exposing me so that I could see how much I need to grow, He was exposing how much I need Him. He was not exposing how far away I was from becoming who he’d called me to be, he was highlighting the fact that in order to walk in who he says I already am, I just need Him. I realized that he stripped me of things I placed my value in not to “check me”but to draw me closer to him so that he could fill me with himself. He was exposing a deep desire that I had for his benefits and not for Him. I realized that he was not punishing me but taking me to a new level of relationship with him where my love for him grows from being for my own sake (the things of God, the gifts, and his benefits) to loving him for the sake of Himself (having him and him alone).
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—”
This realization led me to Philippians 3:7-9. Here, Paul talks about counting his gains as a loss for the sake of knowing Christ. I meditated on this for a couple weeks and grew to understand that Paul is saying that NOTHING in the world is greater that having a relationship with God and loving God for the sake of having him in his life.
This convicted me. It brought me to a question that I had to really sit with. Am I content with God alone? Could I be okay without seminary, without ministry, without success, without marriage, without financial abundance for the sake of knowing Christ? It did not take long for me to answer this question. The answer was and is No.
My answer really brought me to a place of evaluating my life and relationship with God. I recognized that all my doing for the Lord was actually for me, it wasn’t to get to know him. I realized reading the bible was difficult because I was reading it to make me feel good; I was reading the bible in search of a word to help my situation and not in search of God and to learn his character. My churchgoing was to fulfill me and make me feel like I’m doing the right and Godly thing. My serving was to please/impress the leaders in my church and to fulfill a deep desire to be valuable. My studying in seminary was to be able to wield my knowledge at people; it was to be the person who can answer all the questions not to glorify him. This brought me to a place of vulnerability before God. In this moment I recognized how deeply broken I am and that I just need him and him alone.
SURRENDER
My heart needs to know him. He alone is good. He alone has to be enough for me. Nothing that he gives me is going to ever suffice or fulfill me the way he will. I need deeper relationship with Him, not because of the benefits that he will bless me with, but because my heart is broken and the only way my heart can truly be transformed is by knowing him deeply and intimately. It’s a place of surrender that I never knew I needed to go. A place of surrendering all the benefits of God for the sake of knowing him and having him alone.
This is the truth of where I was quite recently. It’s something I’m with God daily about. I know that I’m not alone in this. I know that we all have had moments of using God for the good things he gives us; using him for the “gains” that Paul talks about. I know that we all get to a place of serving and loving God for our own sake. This isn’t a bad place I realized. It was a neceassry space for me to be in for me to realize that I need God in much deeper way. I realized that this is part of the spiritual growth process.
Remember, he wants you to enjoy his benefits. Psalm 103 tells us all about the Lord and his benefits. He wants us to enjoy his benefits in light of Him alone. His benefits in and of themselves are not good without Him. For me it’s seminary and ministry (they mean nothing without him) but maybe for you its your career, a relationship, or something else. I want to encourage you to keep pressing in. Keep seeking God. Ask him to search you and evaluate any area in your life that you may not be willing to count as a loss for the sake of knowing him. Present your hesitation and resistance to him. Be with him and receive his grace.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,”