surrendering it all

This past winter break, I made the decision to spend 5 days in St. Louis at the InterVarsity Urbana conference. The conference was mostly for undergraduates, but there were a significant number of seminars that were catered towards to-be medical professionals. Additionally, there were numerous seminars that aimed to help people be better evangelizers, be better neighbors, and just be better Christians in general. Thought I was a bit skeptical about going beforehand (I've never been to something of this caliber and knew sometimes emotions can speak larger than reality), and I was spending a significant portion of my only vacation during 3rd year at the conference, I went with faith. In all the leaps of faith God has teased me with this past year, God has never failed. So I went with an open heart, open to the lessons He wanted to teach me, open to whatever God had planned for me at Urbana.

And oh, did God have things planned for me.

I know people say this over and over again, but God seriously does work in incredible and powerful ways. Part of what makes Urbana so awesome lies in the incredible sense of community and power you feel, with over ten thousand people in once place, all with the same passion, calling and willingness to follow God. To have more than ten thousand people be able to testify to God's goodness, to His persistence, and to His answers to prayer...To have hundreds of people who have gone the narrow road, who have taken up their cross, and who have followed Jesus without turning back...To have those hundreds of people speak SO joyously and passionately about God's provision and his ability to literally move mountains for these missionaries...Oh, it is an amazing testament to how God is SO good. At the conference, more than ever before, I realized how great a DISSERVICE we do to ourselves, our own dreams by thinking they are too SMALL. NOTHING, NOTHING is too small for God to do, if it is in His will, and if the ultimate goal is to glorify Him.

I realized at the conference I was really at fault for falling short in faith. I was not asking God for ENOUGH. God WANTS every one of our requests. And oh, can He provide!

To be honest, I think this was the first time I felt, tangibly FELT, the Holy Spirit moving in me, making physical, tangible changes. As someone whose grown up in the church, there have been times in my life where I wonder where I can continue to grow in my walk with Christ, since I've known him for all my life, right? WRONG. Also, I've always thought I had good faith. WRONG. Thankfully God in His great mercy forgives my arrogance and continues to remind me how much further there is to go, but how patient He is in helping me down that road.

For example, I remember always reading Romans 12:1-2--

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

--And my reaction was always, "Yea, yea of course God. I'm transformed. Of course I'll sacrifice for you." When really, I was not there at all. I've heard stories about people who have reached this point already and admired them, but I still held onto the comforts of this world. I still held onto my own opinions. I still wasn't quite ready to surrender. I never had enough faith.

Until now.

It wasn't a 'one moment you're one person; another moment you're not', but at some point during Urbana, I think God wanted it to be time for me to make a commitment to Him. Not to what I though His plan was, but first and formost to HIM, and to be willing to be transformed, not just partially but completely. By slowly stripping me of minor material possessions and my desire to make plans, God gave me very clear signs about what it TRULY means to live out Romans 12:2.

Mind you, things like 'the willingness to surrender your life' are not easy to swallow (which is why it took me so long to get here in the first place). Also, it wasn't like God was giving me this awesome clear next-5 year plan for my life. God didn't reveal to me a residency, or a place he wanted me to go. No, God wasn't clear about my future at all. And just because I didn't have hesitation about surrendering to God, didn't mean I didn't have FEAR. But God was clear about one thing: HE WAS HERE. He is with me. And He's not going to tell me everything at once, but He's going to give me baby steps. All I have to do is obey.
The first step was clear: I needed to pray more.

When I was at the exhibition hall at Urbana, I met up with a missionary who had worked with one of my good friends. I had entered the hall in search of a project, but was praying God would give me guidance. God brought me to this missionary's booth, and instead of providing me with an opportunity, the missionary provided me with a challenge:

"S, you sound genuine. But before you go forward, you need to ask yourself this: Do you want to go to **** because YOU want to, or is God truly calling YOU to go?"

That was like a slap in the face. I was speechless. The missionary was so right. How much of my desire to 'sacrifice myself' for God was MY doing, and how much of it was truly me following God??
That humbling experience would haunt me for the next month. I realized how little I knew about what God wanted me to do, and how helpless I felt because I didn't know. It was terrifying. I was utterly broken by how far I felt from God at that point because I felt so lost. I also knew this wasn't just an emotional reaction to a stimulus because the feeling persisted after the conference. In fact, Urbana was the spark; the realization of my shortcoming. The realization of my paltry sacrifice; to only partially commit for so long!?...it was a realization that brought me to my knees in humility. I spent many moments this past month literally in tears, because I was so scared. I was so torn between the sacrifices God was calling me, SO STRONGLY, to do, and how scary it was to fully and completely obey. But I knew that was what God wanted me to do, and that He knew I was at a point where I could take that leap of faith--to commit to a lifetime of faith.
And so, with many tears, I did.

Did I mention how good God is?

This past month, for as many tears I've cried, God has reminded me of His grace. In places I thought I'd never see him work, God has opened doors. In fact, more so than I had ever imagined, when God's first command was to pray and I finally obeyed without hesitation, God started answering ridiculously quickly. My old self kept trying to hold back, but with each new leap of faith, each tear was dried away with feelings of utter joy. This, THIS was what I was missing out on and THIS was what it meant to be God's servant, to be walking hand in hand with God. It feels amazing.

Words cannot explain how much of a blessing Urbana was for me. How much of a blessing the people God's put in my life have been for me, to have slowly built me up to this point. (Special thanks to J, A, C, D, and J for being amazing examples!). How much joy and comfort I now have because my confidence is solely, and ONLY, in the Lord. Again, this doesn't mean that I don't have worries. But now, those worries are lifted to God, and suddenly, I have confidence. On the floors, I not only see patients through eyes of compassion; I see them through eyes of Jesus. When the sins of this world tug at my heart, I give those burdens to Him.

I am sharing this with all of you guys so you can keep me accountable. And so whenever I am in those dark and scary places (which, believe me, are many in the medical world), I can look back on this entry and remember that in all things, God is good.


Amen :)