Change & Adjustments

It occurred to me the other day that in the matter of three weeks I have begun a completely new life. 


It's fascinating to me how quickly I've adjusted and gotten settled here. After going out of town this weekend, as I was driving back into the Nashville area I was surprised at how natural it felt to be coming back to Nashville. . . like coming home. Going into EMI first thing Monday morning, I was excited to be back, excited to see the people and it felt so right to be there. 


Now, as far as my activities at work, the sad thing is that a lot of the things worth talking about, I'm not supposed to share or talk about due to confidentiality. So there's actually quite a bit of things that happen, that I haven't told you all, and I wish I could. I say all this simply because I don't want you all to think I'm evading your questions about what I do; I'm not. 


Yesterday I met an incredible woman. Her name is Debbie. She was such a flutter of energy, love and smiles that I could barely interject a word to even introduce myself until finally one of my supervisors made the introduction. I honestly forget what it is exactly that Debbie does, or her affiliation with EMI, but I remember she came bearing cupcakes, and more importantly I remember why she came bearing cupcakes. It was her Jesus birthday. This grandmother started tearing up as she shared how eighteen years ago she met Jesus, and she went on to say that her other birthday did not matter, because her life did not start until she met Jesus. Inspiring. She walks around on her Jesus birthday with a tiara on so she can teach her grandchildren and have the opportunity to share the immense joy that radiates from her about when her life began. Wow. Do I have that same perspective? 


Over the past several days I have had ridiculous amounts of time to think, which can be dangerous, but it turned fruitful. This particular cycle of thought started with fear, led to realizations and ended in pure contentment. The first two portions are not nearly as significant as the third. The third being that I found that I am completely content with my life. I am content with being in Nashville, content with my internship, content with my place in life. There are so many things that I look to, thinking I would like them, or want them, or even need them, but I transcended into freedom when I saw that everything I had looked to was truly supplementary to the main thing. None of those things, and nothing could satisfy me and fulfill me the way the Lord can, and none of those things mean anything apart from my relationship with the One who created those things. I found myself having a singularity of desire and a singularity of heart; Christ. Nothing could replace Him. Every other good thing I am ever given is not instead of Him, but an additional blessing to the ultimate blessing of Him. I don't know what is going to happen in three months, and at the moment that seems even more up in the air than ever before, but it almost doesn't matter because I already have everything I need. I'm sure it sounds so utterly simplistic, but it resounds deeply within me since it was anything but simple to get to this place. 


For quite some time now, Oswald Chambers was starting to get on my nerves, and so I initiated a time of separation, but "My Utmost For His Highest", Oswald and I have been happily reunited and this one portion continues to rest at the front of my mind.


" We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. it is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes." - My Utmost for His Highest [October 21]


I can see my inbred discipline and my insatiable drive kick in as troubles arise (like having to face my loans six months sooner than I had anticipated; thanks again federal government). I can work harder, and push myself further and do everything in my strength to pull it all together and make it work; I can, I am capable of doing that. But to live contentedly and humbly in an ordinary life, in an ordinary job, being just another car stuck in traffic on the freeway, being just another worker in a metropolitan scene. I'm learning this. 


There are voices of anxiety, and voices of fear, and a voice trying to control it all; voices of others pressurizing me - but I know the voice of my Saviour. That is the voice that I will follow. All the other things that we try to make happen for ourselves - I'm not certain if that is where I'm supposed to go. Yet I know that if it is where I am to go, there will be a voice behind me saying, "This is the way, walk in it" [Isaiah 30:21]. As long as I narrow in on that voice and follow it, that beautiful voice will lead me to wherever it is I am supposed to go. This world is broken and complicated, but what an incredible thought to realize that we have all of eternity to live gloriously.