A“cross” My Heart: a journey of Trust (part 2/2)

     As I sat there on a, “Bench,” amidst the hustle and bustle of Minneapolis' St. Paul International airport, God came straight down to me in the form of a lost necklace. The thoughts and questions began to pour into my head. Thoughts of loss, of letting go, and a lack of understanding. As soon as I got past all these initial thoughts of sorrow and questioning, my mind began to clear and the next thought popped in my head. “God has a reason for everything, why do you think he allowed the necklace to be lost? Is he doing something here, he knew how much this meant to you.” This is when the bells began to ring. Silly me, I should of seen it right from the start. I had spent the last couple months diligently walking through a book called, “Counterfeit Gods,” by Timothy Keller. As you may have guessed from the title, the focus of Keller's book was idol's. I had spent all this time learning about and defining idols. Yet, I lost a necklace and found myself crushed and searching for answers, almost as if I had never picked up the book in the first place.

      If I were asked to share one thing from Keller's book, it would be that idols are an issue of the heart. This simple but evident truth is the key to understanding what I feel happened during the month of June, up in Canada. The truth is our hearts are idol factories, manufacturing idol after idol to compete with the one, true design our hearts were created for, the Love of Christ. Now, lets take a step back before I lead anyone astray. I am not about to call my cross necklace in itself an idol or say its wrong to feel sorrow for the loss of anything. After all, Jesus wept for his dear friend Lazarus and I believe he weeps for all of us who are lost. However, I will be sure to share that this situation brought forth an awareness of the presence of a needed change in my heart.

      This situation showed me the selfish desires and fundamental failings my heart was trying to build itself upon. When God made sure the cross necklace was to leave my possession, he was, in fact, not taking away a gold cross at all. He was taking something far more important to him. He was grabbing the attention of my heart. He was taking my hearts attention and ripping all the desires I had developed selfishly in search of satisfying the idols of my life. His next plan was to begin replacing them with desires that I feel were the desires he created me to walk this earth with. And he was doing this all on my way to the one place he knew I would listen and many before me had listened (see Brooke in part 1). 

      By the time I took my first steps on the inner dock of Malibu Club, Canada, I was well aware God had plans for me, I just wasn't sure what they were yet. Also, by this time, he had shown me, “Trust,” in the form of accepting that the necklace had been lost and was history. I was in the midst of, “Trusting,” him for the rest of the month as I began to serve and wait impatiently for what, I did not know at the time, would be the filling of my heart with new desires from his own design.

      The one illustration I keep coming back to when sharing how the Lord worked with me during the month is an image of Him taking my head, pushing it down till my chin meets my chest, and whispering into my ear, “Jacob, take a look at your heart!” This is what I felt he was doing in the countless situations I found myself looking all around me for the answers of what he was trying to teach me at Malibu. Every time, I ended up head down looking down into the depths of my heart. Eventually, this theme no longer needed to continue because a few day after the 20^th, which is when I celebrate my born-again birthday, I was placed on a porch to listen to God's final messenger He had lined up for my heart. That messenger was named Bob Goff. To put a long-story short Mr. Goff shared stories and beliefs that were the answers I knew I had been brought to Malibu to hear. 

Bob Goff sharing stories with our entire Summer Staff team

      I left the Goff's house with a heart consumed by the fire of new desire, the very thing, I now know, God had grabbed the attention of my heart for when he took away the cross necklace. Yes, of course I'm going to share what those new desires are. I know have the desire for, and feel God calling me to, a life where I am fighting for something. I am not sure what this fight will look like or where it will take place. However, I have also had this desire coupled with another. That desire is to help those in need of help, more specifically justice, and I feel that puts me into one of two career paths, law or full-time ministry. I know these are desires from God himself because I have never before considered anything near law, and I have always been scared of committing to full-time ministry. It puts me on pins and needles just thinking of where the Lord plans on taking me and that is just another reason I love Him and all his glory.
      There's one final chapter to be shared. What happened that morning as I was packing to leave Malibu? What happened was God showed me that when we, “Trust.” Him and leave things in His hands He will take them and replace them with things incomparable to what we had intended for them. He can also bring them back into our lives with a far greater glory than they had when we were in charge of them and not trusting Him with all of it.

      What I'm talking about is on that morning I reached into my Columbia jacket to pull out my goofy thick rimmed glasses, which I had stored in the chest pocket the night before. The very same chest pocket I thought I had placed my mom's cross necklace in a month earlier, while waiting in the Pittsburgh TSA security checkpoint line. 
     I pulled and heard a clinking noise. I remember thinking, “Wow, you're an idiot, you put change in the same pocket you had the glasses in. They're sure to be all scratched up.” Thus, I yanked them out ready to examine them closely for scratches and, as I leaned in, they began to come out of the pocket into my view. There it was! The gold-chain was wrapped in the most beautiful tangled mess one could imagine, all around the the left lens and where the frame of the glasses met the left hinge. All the while, the cross was there swinging to and fro below the goofiest thing I owned, my fake black rimmed glasses .

Being goofy in the goofy glasses

      I immediately had to sit down and just be overwhelmed with joy because I knew God had gave it back. To this day, I cannot explain how the necklace was in that chest pocket after a month of wearing it everyday and putting items like money, a camera, and glasses in it. I have one idea though, God. He physically removed it from me and He returned it. Trust, trust, and when that's done have faith to trust Him more. Mom's cross necklace no longer symbolizes the desire to mourn a mother I love. It now symbolizes, “Trust”. Trust him with my desires. Trust him in my fears.

      Fortunately, there were many experiences during my time up north of the border that God showed me his way. Unfortunately, I am only sharing, here, the one lesson I feel that defined all the rest of them. That lesson is that in order for God to truly transform us, or more specifically our hearts, we must begin to, “Trust,” him with everything, from our desires to our fears, and we must go out and follow these desires while facing our fears. I am beyond excited to start walking behind the Lord with these new-found desires. Well, we are now at the end of all this smoke I've been blowing out onto your computer screen and leaving up for you to decipher the meaning in it all. 

Call Me Crazy but I Love You All