Spending my summer in graduate school for teaching has been...interesting. I am learning a lot, getting to know new people, and definitely feeling more and more ready to take on a classroom with each passing day...but definitely not there quite yet.
One of the things I'm learning is that repetition is the key to teaching. Repetition in enforcing proper behavior, repetition in important information, repetition of teaching strategies, repetition of praise...And I'm realizing more and more how this works on me.
Particularly from God.
I tend to joke about God needing to smack me with a 2x4 before I get the message He's trying to send me. That's often based on repetition. The same message appears over and over in different forms from different people in different places, but it's always the same message.
That message lately has been based on two of my biggest weakness (surprise surprise): trust, and being okay with being weak.
I don't trust people too easily, and I'm sporadic on how I trust God. I have my core group of friends whom I trust almost 100%, but most others I keep at arm's length before determining how much I can trust them. When I get that gut feeling to do something, I do it, trusting that God is that voice inside me, but when it comes down to not having control over something really important to me, I want to do it on my own.
God keeps telling me lately to just TRUST. HE is in control. I am not. And his plan is so much better than mine could ever be, so it's really just my loss if I don't trust him.
Life takes risk, like a card game. One of my friends has taught us new card games lately, and a lot of them involve taking a risk. One game in particular is entirely based on risk: you get 4 cards, all face down, and you can only look at 2 of them. You then draw from the deck each turn and decide if you want to get rid of any of the 4 cards you have face down to try to get the lowest points; but remember, you only know what 2 of your cards are. This type of game is right up my alley because I'm not competitive, so I don't have the huge weight of worrying if my risk will be worth it. I'm all about that risk: I love risky behaviors (my friends worry sometimes).
Trusting God with the outcome of my life is a little bit harder, though. I know it shouldn't be. But I'm trying.
Then there's the whole admitting to weakness thing. I'm a strong person, emotionally and mentally. I don't like to appear weak; it's why I hate to cry. I'm sure it gets on my friends' nerves when I don't really let on how much something bothers me, or it takes the form of anger instead of hurt, or I talk about it completely objectively so I don't show how it's hurting me personally. I'm independent and strong to a fault, and it gets me in trouble a lot. I'm not scared of a whole lot, and the things I am are pretty irrational and therefore funny and I joke about them (mascots? really?). So it's really no surprise that God is trying to teach me about my weaknesses.
God gave me verses I've grown up hearing last night: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. "Be he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me...For when I am weak, then I am strong."
I had to read it a few times to try to comprehend it. I've grown up hearing it quoted at me and around me, but never taken the time to understand. It seems so paradoxical. Power in weakness? When I'm weak, I'm strong? Boasting about weakness? SO not me, God! That is so not me.
...which is exactly why He's trying to teach me about it. I wrestled with them for a while, and I came to some conclusions.
I always want to prove myself, but what I really should be doing is proving God. My life's purpose is to glorify God. Period, end of story. One of the biggest ways He is glorified is by trusting him (there's that trust thing again...) in my weakness. When I'm weak, I have no choice but to trust him. God IS all powerful. He is strong for me when I can't be. His strength is even infinitely stronger than MY strengths are, so really, all of me is weak compared to him. He is glorified when I am weak because his strength shows so much more!
I've been through three very weak times in my life, all a few years apart. These were more than just having a bad week. These were times when I was completely drained in every way and had almost no strength left to carry on. In those times I wound up drawing closer to God than I ever had been because I had nothing left in me to support myself. It was either give up, or give it to God. Reflecting on those times last night I finally realized WHY I wound up so much closer to God - God's power was made perfect in my weakness. I have those stories, my testimony, to show how God's strength carried me when I couldn't.
I want nothing more than to desire with all of my being to be so weak that God's grace and power fills me.
It's so weird to say that, and my heart is in constant battle over it. But I know it's what I need to do, and I will do what it takes to get there.
So thanks God, for that repetition. I know I'll keep getting it, too. I'm a tough student, I know. But keep teaching. I'll get there.
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