I keep a lot of the little notes of encouragement that students leave on my desk to look at when times are tough. They’re awesome:
Hi J…stay awesome. You are the coolest. Thanks for everything. I swear your prayers helped me.
And indeed, when times are tough I need only look just beyond my computer to my bookshelf to see the affirmation of students. It’s enough to lift me out of a funk. It’s enough to keep me moving. These post it notes, and this is saying something, can be almost as effective as coffee when I need a kickstart to my day.
These notes however have the potential to be deadly. I, being human, struggle a lot with pride. I struggle with the thought that I am in fact the coolest. That I am in fact awesome. I am tempted to run in this direction from time to time, which makes a much bigger deal out of ME than I could possibly be.
And so I added a new post it note to my bookshelf:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise Him all creatures here below Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost.
The first line in the doxology seems particularly important. The blessings in my life aren’t my own. They’re not a result of hard work and dedication, hard work and dedication are the stewardship of blessing. I am not cool. Seriously, find my high school year book. I am not cool. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know everything. My world is not perfect. And that’s ok. God gives me all that I need to get through the day. God gives me all I need to survive.
I want my life to be more of a living doxology. I want to walk down the street and have people know that I am living an act of praise. I want to be different. I want to be content. I want to live like I know where my blessings come from rather than brag about how many blessings I have. I want to be that guy. I want to be that guy around the kids I’m honored to serve. I want to be that guy so much that they know what being that guy is like. I want to be a living doxology.
Who’s with me?
Jason Freyer is an MDiv student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary who is involved in youth ministry. Follow this link for more blog posts by Jason: http://www.j-blog.net/