Jesus is Lord!!!!

So after a week in Ledbury with all the other Relay workers I have come back to Birmingham with lots to think about and things to act on. I thought I'd learnt a lot over the past 5 months of Relay but apparently you can learn just as much in a week. I feel like I've gone away and come back as a different person with a whole new set of challenges! The key challenge to the week I guess was "out of all the opportunities I can see, with the person God has made me, how can I best show the world the truth about God so they can respond?" I need to be showing most of all in whatever comes next that Jesus is Lord of my life. I want to be doing something that will aim to reflect his glory and lead people to recognise Jesus is Lord of their lives too. A week ago I was happy enough to believe that that was about doing my PGCE and learning to be a Drama teacher but apparently God has different plans. After the challenges of the week I came home to discover that because my reference was not completed and the applications had closed, that was no longer even an option. I know that I have been challenged this week to really think about how I can use the privilege this year has been to serve God and his gospel. God has challenged me on what my true hearts desires are and how I often put other things above him. Some of my idols are just so ingrained to my life that I allow them to effect all the decisions that I make about my life rather than seeking God and his glory. How stupid is that? My value and worth is so reliant upon those things that I let them take hold and dont even give God a second thought. My rebellion and rejection of God was made so real to me this week and its something I want to see changed in my life. Thinking about my future in the way that I do needs to change. I realised this week how much marriage is an idol in my life. I want it so much that it affects how I look ahead in my life and suddenley any thoughts of how I should be serving God go out of the window. I expect that its in a relationship that I will find my true value and worth and that is totally wrong. Christ is where my true value lies and I long to be truely sold out for him rather than some man who is only going to let me down anyway as marriage is not going to solve all my problems. Life won't suddenley be fulfilled! Ok so the big question is, if my plans aren't working out then what is God leading me to? I need to truely trust in his Sovereignty and the fact that he will reveal his will at the right time, not my time.
This week has also made me so aware of how weak I am. That petrified me at first, I was scared that looking vulnerable was such a bad thing and I worried more about what people thought of me. But that again is looking to please man and not God. So what if I appear weak to others? Is that such a bad thing? By appearing tough and looking better am I helping or hindering my brothers and sisters in Christ? I need to seek to glorify God in my own life and in the lives of others. I am painfully aware of the effect my actions have in the way God is glorified in all my relationships, some more than others, and I hope now I will seek to make him glorified rather than myself as I so often do. I am no longer as afraid of my weaknesses because I know actually, that God will get glory through them.

'He said to me "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong!' 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9-10