The Approval of God

This week marks the end of my first month at Asbury.

It's amazing to think that I am not the same person I was a month ago.

A month ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of getting up at 6:00 to pray every morning.

I would never have asked someone I'd just met how I could pray for them.

I would never have found myself yearning for the end of the day so that I could crawl into bed and talk to God. Just talk with Him.

I'd like to say that its the environment or the people, but its not. It's the Lord.

For the first time in my life I'm finding myself longing for God. Wanting to want Him. Desiring to desire Him.

At my new church in Wilmore, we're studying the book of John. We read these verses on Sunday:

"Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."
      - John 12:42-43

I'd like to think that I'm not like those rulers. That I am far more concerned about what God thinks that about what men think, but it's just not true.

Even here at school, I find myself obsessed with what other people think of me. Peers, friends, teachers, even the girls in my prayer group. Sometimes when we pray I think more about what they think of my prayer than about what God does.

I am sickened by my own desire for the approval of others.

It's disgusting to me. And I've realized that God is making me more and more aware of how dirty I am. How much I need Him. How weak and empty and helplessly sinful I am without Him.

But that's just where I should be. Because His power is perfected in my weakness.

I can only hope that one day I will love the approval of God rather than the approval of men.