December 7, 2018

Maddie Fowler ’21

PSALMS 16, 102, 148; ISAIAH 3:1-4; 1 THESSALONIANS 4:1-12; LUKE: 20:21-21:4

I constantly try to be who I think the world demands me to be. I constantly shape-shift between the perfect, driven, relentless student demanded at Duke, the exciting, extroverted, upbeat friend I think my peers want me to be, and the child my parents can always tell others is “doing great!” What gets lost on me, and I think on a lot of people, is that the single most important, and only true identity we have is that of children of God.
These passages show us that God lays all bare. He knows the corners we cut so that we can prioritize our many earthly identities over Him. He will protect goodness and knows our sin. We need not be afraid to just put away our masks and yield all to him. God calls even kings as great as David to realize their powerlessness before God. There is no need for masks when we have a God who knows us better than we know ourselves and lovingly designed the person we are meant to be.
And once we begin to depend on God, our earthly demands become a little less demanding. Everything we have faced, He has faced and persevered. Every need, He has felt and conquered. Our world is fickle and precarious; our Savior is ceaseless, inexhaustible, and unwavering. God calls us to surrender completely to Him. Like the woman who “out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on,” trust that the only thing worth having is God’s love.