I'm trying to reconcile the two. Let me describe last night. I went to Revelation, and everything Brandon preached on, everything, had to do with what I'm dealing with as a young professional.
Everyone is telling me to think about the next big step; what would be the best career choice for you given your talents? What can you choose that is most lucrative? What can you pick that will position you to best "move up the ladder?" What type of life do you want for yourself, Ellen? And last night, all I heard was Babylon, the city of demons. And I don't know exactly where that is or how Babylon is going to be destroyed, but I know that those who follow their own selfish ambitions are lost in the fray and miss the plans of the Lord.
I don't want to miss Jesus, above all else.
I don't want to value my car or my townhouse or my job or my boyfriend more than I value Jesus Christ. And everything around me is telling me to create my own future. Be better than the other guy. Scout out the competition and beat it out. And be the best. Never be satisfied with what you have, always want more. And though I'm not a proponent of "settling," I think there's an element to the American Dream that is completely wrong. The "be-the-best-on-your-own" merit goes against the humility and gratitude preached in the Bible. The mentality that one can never have enough, and is always seeking after the next biggest version of material weatlh is wrong. All that wealth will be destroyed, whether its obtained for good, unselfish motivations or not.
I am not trying to tote the message of self-righteousness. But I got caught up in this world of Masters' degrees and wanting something more for myself, and holding on to the possibility that maybe I could have worldly success and Jesus on the side, and I came to the conclusion that I can't. So I need to get to the point where I can say I want Jesus more than anything else. And this is where I become so confused.
Because let me describe my Babylon. Its a world where I give in to all types of temptations and let the rest of my world think I'm living this godly life. I come home, devote some time to the Revelation ministry and have something cool to pad my resume as far as community service goes, and keep going with a masters. Maybe public policy, maybe organization management, maybe project management, but its something that someone has said to me that i should pursue because it'll make me successful. And a husband and family can be the icing on the cake, you know? The hot
commodity that vies for first place among my affections with my career. And maybe I'll fail, but if I succeed? My gosh, I'll be the epitome of independence; I'll be able to say it was all on my own merit, that I didn't get help from anyone (though that, of course, would be a lie) and I'd have all this success that could be placed on a gravestone at the end of the day, ready to burn. I'll have lived a "good" life, then it will be over. And my family will not have been first; I would be a crippled vessel that Jesus might have tried to use but could never plow through the miles of "success" that clouded my view. I'd be useless. The demons would have crippled me as they do in the Screwtape letters, and I won't be able to fulfill the life Jesus had in store for me.
My conundrum is my plans vs. Jesus. I think there's still a huge part of me that's trying to reconcile the calling of God with my boyfriend. I want God to fit both into my life conveniently over the next year and a half so I can get this missions thing out of my system, as if its something that only lasts for a little while, and be ready to anything else, too. Or maybe, if I'm brutally honest, I'm so bored that I'll do anything to occupy myself, even if it means taking off to some foreign country and teaching English and getting a certification that would yet allow me to have a convenient career.
Can I do both? Can I serve both God and myself? Not at all.
