I Count it All as Loss

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Philippians 3:8

 

Lately God has been showing me what following him costs. You hear over and over again that “In this world you will have trouble” and that this Christian life isn’t easy; that it requires sacrifice. But what does that even mean? When I first heard that I though okay sure, things could get a little tough but God will help me so it’s no big deal. But today especially, God has just shown me that following Him costs EVERYTHING. Yes, everything. That means your pride, your plans, in some cases a relationship, and even our friends.

            Tonight there was a roller skating event and if you know anything about me, you know that I would’ve been there in a heartbeat. Except I had to work and I was not too thrilled about that. But get this, tonight as I sat at the desk, God showed up in one of the coolest ways. When I got there, one of my co-workers was just hanging around so we sat and talked for a while. Looking back I’m thankful for our conversation but at the time I was so frustrated. I just needed to get some homework done. What the heck? First my roller skating plans are ruined and now I can’t even do my homework? Can I do anything that I want? But as we talked and talked, my focused shifted from myself and ‘what do I need to do’ to how can I love her as Christ would? You see, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in that schedule game. It’s so easy to put our lives into constrictions and planners that when something doesn’t go “according to plan”, we just freak out. (as shown above) But what if our schedules didn’t matter? What if every day instead of opening up our planners and rushing to make that appointment at 9:15, we were open to God changing our plans?

            So as the night went on, our conversation grew. It was not only me and my co-worker anymore, but an international student from London came up and talked to us for close to 2 hours. She and my co-worker instantly connected because they’re both of Persian descent, so they spoke of their traditions and customs and I learned a ton! But then out of nowhere, she began to talk about her religious views. She described herself as Muslim but says that it’s more of a cultural label and that here in America she calls herself agnostic. She talked about how she gets weird looks when she tells that to people here in America and my co-worker chimed in and said that she gets weird looks all the time since she’s atheist. Those words pierced my heart but gave me a much needed wake up call. There are so many things and emotions that come to mind but all I can think about is how desperate that made me to share with her how much God loves her. When she said those words, everything just made sense. That’s why life is so difficult. That’s why you can’t seem to find satisfaction or answers. I have an answer!

            As I sat there listening to them talk, I just kept thinking “God, this is crazy.” I always talk about how I want to do missions but I’m not able to and here God was bringing a missions trip to me, right there at work! He placed someone from London right there in front of me. Sitting there in the midst of this incredible opportunity made me realize that while I would love to be overseas, I have to finish the work in front of me first. I have to be willing to give up my plans so that God’s plans can prevail. Because when we give up our plans, we might become an RA when we didn’t “plan” on it. And we might be working at the desk instead of roller blading with our friends like we “planned.” But we might be sharing something far more important with ears and hearts like God has planned.