On more than one occasion, I've had people tell me that I've accomplished more in my short 21 years than many people do in their entire lifetime. I was thinking about that statement today. It's true that I have done more after 21 years than most people do. But I can't say that it was I who accomplished it.
I think of a little girl, scrawling in paint and playdough, who proudly says that she made the ugly, primitive drawing that she presents to her father. She did it, true, but it is nothing to be proud of, and her father accepts it only because his daughter was the one who did it. But then, years later, when she stands before her magnum opus, she cannot rightfully say that SHE was the one who accomplished it. If her father had not encouraged her, enabled her, and loved her through her failures, she would have never gotten to where she is today.
That's how we are with our heavenly Father. We cannot offer Him anything of value, but He takes it anyway, and turns our feeble efforts into something beautiful. I cannot claim credit for graduating with a 4.0 GPA, having many, many opportunities to study, travel, and live abroad, the many accolades and awards that I have received, or even the fact that I am now a Fulbright scholar. God is the reason for everything good that has happened in my life - everything.
I do not deny that I am blessed - but I DO deny that it is because of my hard work, my brilliance, my persistence, or anything of the sort. It is because God loves me and blesses me far more than I deserve - and because I love Him back. Ezra 8:22 says that "The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him; but His power and His wrath is against all them that forsake Him." Jeremiah 9:24 admonishes us to "'Let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight', says the LORD."
Luke 11:9-10 clearly states that if we "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened." If I have any success at all, it's because I simply believed God's word and did what it said. I kept asking, and He kept giving. What a wonderful God we have, who is both able and willing to keep a promise such as that.
I think of a little girl, scrawling in paint and playdough, who proudly says that she made the ugly, primitive drawing that she presents to her father. She did it, true, but it is nothing to be proud of, and her father accepts it only because his daughter was the one who did it. But then, years later, when she stands before her magnum opus, she cannot rightfully say that SHE was the one who accomplished it. If her father had not encouraged her, enabled her, and loved her through her failures, she would have never gotten to where she is today.
That's how we are with our heavenly Father. We cannot offer Him anything of value, but He takes it anyway, and turns our feeble efforts into something beautiful. I cannot claim credit for graduating with a 4.0 GPA, having many, many opportunities to study, travel, and live abroad, the many accolades and awards that I have received, or even the fact that I am now a Fulbright scholar. God is the reason for everything good that has happened in my life - everything.
I do not deny that I am blessed - but I DO deny that it is because of my hard work, my brilliance, my persistence, or anything of the sort. It is because God loves me and blesses me far more than I deserve - and because I love Him back. Ezra 8:22 says that "The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him; but His power and His wrath is against all them that forsake Him." Jeremiah 9:24 admonishes us to "'Let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight', says the LORD."
Luke 11:9-10 clearly states that if we "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened." If I have any success at all, it's because I simply believed God's word and did what it said. I kept asking, and He kept giving. What a wonderful God we have, who is both able and willing to keep a promise such as that.
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