What's in you?

It's so funny for me as a teacher to see how God teaches me things. I'm seeing such a pattern... lesson, break to absorb it, lesson, test. For example, these past couple of weeks, my pastor has been preaching on gratefulness. I was initially blown away by what he said. Wow... if Adam and Eve had focused on how grateful they were for all God gave them, they would have had no room to be ungrateful for the one thing he claimed only for himself. I tried to walk out gratefulness in my daily life, but it got a little lost in my immense to-do list. Next Sunday, same kind of thing. Wow... gratefulness, right! Yes, I need that! Then last night I was suddenly faced with a HUGE test of my ability to be grateful.

Interestingly, I had just been talking with another leader about how excited I am to be starting a small group for middle school girls. I was telling her that I couldn't wait to share an object lesson the Lord had used recently to make me think. I imagined two soda bottles: one filled and one empty. Even with a blindfold, you could pretty easily determine which was which. All you'd have to do is flick 'em both and see which one keels over.

I won't lie and say I'm super excited about the things going on in my life. Challenges are, yes, challenging. But I really saw myself in that object lesson, and I know that God is using these challenges to draw me to himself. If I'm filled with gratefulness to God for all the things I have, this circumstance, this little blip on my eternal life, will not knock me over. If, though, I don't allow God to fill me, I'm going to be thrown all over the place! I know that God is building character in me, and unlike in school, my looking to someone else for all my answers will not cause me to fail... in fact, looking to my heavenly father is the only way I can pass!