Article written by student leader Katie Klassen.
I spent two whole months of last summer in San Diego California attending Summer Leadership Project that was hosted by Campus Outreach San Diego. For those who have no idea what that even means, I will clarify. In essence, I spent the summer developing my own relationship with Christ, clarifying and building my testimony, and learning to talk to others about Christ and what He has done through the Gospel. I did this alongside 50 other students from campuses around California, Montana, and Colorado who were doing the same thing. We became one giant community of Jesus loving people learning how to better serve His kingdom.
I went into the summer feeling a little off in my personal relationship with the Lord. I wasn't quite sure why, or what the problem was, however I felt like I wasn't seeing or appreciating the full beauty of Christ and what He had done for me. A main reason this normally happens to people is because we often times aren't seeing our own sin for what it truly is. When we can't see our own brokenness, we can't see the beauty or even the need for the gift that Christ has so graciously given us.
So, I decided that this would be my prayer for project. That the Lord would break me, strip me of myself, and show me who I am without Him. That last request might sound super strange to some of you, but bear with me. My hope and my intent was that in seeing myself apart from Christ in all of my ugly brokenness, I would better be able to see the beauty of who I am in Christ. And how crazy thankful I am for a God who loves me enough to answer my prayers of exposing my sin and brokenness.
While He started revealing all of my ugliness, I started having so many doubts and questions, about my salvation but also just life in general, and this provoked a lot of anxiety, insecurity, and a general lack of trust. Needless to say, the first whole month of project was a little rough. My life was basically just chaos.
But thankfully the Jesus that I serve doesn't just want to break us down in order to break us down. He wants to break us down in order to teach us something, building within us a new foundation, with Jesus as the cornerstone. And that is what He did/is doing. Often our insecurities and doubts reveal to us that our security wasn’t placed in Jesus in the first place. It’s actually okay to have questions because fully trusting Christ is one of our biggest struggles.
At least that was the way it was for me. God was showing me all of the broken and ugly areas of my life, and turning them into beautiful lessons that I get to learn from. This summer I was able to identify what it practically looks like when I am not putting my trust in Christ. For me, it is when I start having anxiety, when I worry about situations and how they will turn out, when I feel the need to take control of things. In these moments I tend to turn to friends with my issues instead of God. Now, when I notice one of these situations manifesting itself in my life, I am able to identify the lack of trust in God, and give the keys back over to Him. I am still growing in that trust, by no means am I perfect, but now that I’ve seen and identified that struggle, it’s hard to miss whe n I’m in it.
Another thing that I learned last summer is that in my flesh I try to put my identity in performance based things instead of in Christ. I always believed that my identity was in Christ, and that is the answer I would have given throughout all of my high school years, but this summer I decided to take a closer look. I realized that throughout all of my middle school and high school years, I spent so so so much time trying to please my parents, get good grades, excel in musical instruments, play well in sports, be the best child in the family, and have perfect friendships. But every time I would get a B in a class, or get my phone taken away by my parents, or not play well in basketball and get benched, or lose a friendship, or anything along those lines, I would be left feeling discouraged. My identities were failing me. If I was truly putting my identity in Christ, then it wouldn't matter if I didn't play well, or I missed a note on the piano, or get a B in a class, because I wouldn't be living for those things, I would be living for the glory of Jesus, not my own. Now to clarify, I am not just gonna slack off in life because my identity isn't placed in those things anymore, I do believe that I should still try my best in all of these areas of life, but it is just not the end all be all if I am not the best. And what a burden that lifts off of my shoulders! Instead of earning my own identity, Jesus earned it for me. So instead to doing my best to be the best, I can do my best for Jesus because he gave his best for me.
These were huge lessons for me to learn all in two months, and boy did I get overwhelmed. But I wouldn't have wanted my summer to go any other way, because the more of my own broken ugliness that I see, the more beauty in Christ's gracious gift of salvation and redemption I see.
And praise God for that!
