Today’s Saturday Spotlight is
Jessie McDiffett.
For the most part, I’d consider myself an optimist. My young life was sweet and easy enough, so why wouldn’t I be? I didn’t start out in a traditionally Christian home per se, but I learned about God’s love for me and heard the gospel for the first time as a little girl in AWANA, sitting on the floor of the fellowship hall at bear valley church.
So GOD… loved ME? Wanted ME? Died for ME? I was a somewhat introverted kid used to being on my own without siblings at home, so I was captivated by this God who saw me, knew me, forgave me, and loved me. I don’t remember if I heard him called our Friend at that time, but that’s who He instinctively became to me. As a kid with an active imagination, It wasn’t too much of a stretch to pray to Him and sing to Him and think of Him during my days. Surely I didn’t know much of what else it meant to love him in return, but I eagerly accepted His love, and tried to be good!
In middle school and high school I was so blessed with godly friends, mentors and youth pastors who taught me and showed me what it meant to live life to honor Christ. It was my joy to do what I could to honor and glorify this God who had seen and loved me, but in looking back I think some parts of my mindset were overly simplistic. “God loves me, therefore He is good to me. Or rather, I can see his love in the ways that he is good to me. I love Him back, much because He is good to me. And because of this, I choose to live in a way that honors Him. And because I choose to obey and honor Him, He will continue to be good to me and give me good things.”
Maybe not all 100% wrong (except that last sentence)—much just the nature of immature love. But perhaps most of all I misunderstood what it must mean for God to be good to me.
“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” I had seen this in my life in small glimpses, but let’s be honest, I had hardly seen trouble!
I was blessed to choose a college that grew me even more in knowledge and love for God. Then I even chose a spouse with the ultimate goal of “glorifying God together better than apart.” I put plenty of thought and prayer into this decision (with maybe a little too much focus on my own ability to choose the right path rather than God’s to direct my path) and at first, marriage was pretty great. Pretty simple.
But in some ways it wasn’t quite what I naively and optimistically expected. And after a while, hardships did come. They appeared and faded in and out over the years, and when they got even stronger and more prominent in my otherwise “blessed” life, I was truly confused. What did I do to deserve this? Did God still love me or was I invisible to him after all? Didn’t I try my best (MY best) to make choices that would honor Him? And didn’t that mean my life should be easier and happier because of it? Oops. Maybe my motivation for making “good” choices wasn’t so selfless after all.
For years, the same hardships lingered (and at times increased or were added to), but thank the Lord for close Godly friends who encouraged me with His word and wisdom in the struggles, fear, and heartache. I prayed and wished for years (sometimes righteously, sometimes sinfully) for an end to specific trials that deeply pained and frustrated me, but I also began to notice the nearness of God in them. On one particular night that I felt very alone and thought the worst was to come, I felt his presence with me so closely, and the peace of knowing that he would guide me step by step even if things only got harder. I would be okay, I was being held and provided for. The devil’s whispers of “Does God REALLY love you?” were rebuked by that knowledge. God wasn’t going to make life perfect or easy, but He would be with me.
Over time I realized more and more how I hadn’t done everything as honorably as I often told myself. My choices in life often came just as much from selfishness, godless self effort, or brokenness as they did from a desire to please God (our motivations are so often mixed, aren’t they?).
God certainly didn’t owe me an easy life or marriage just for my raggedy attempts at doing the right thing. He didn’t owe me anything, but He gave me the best gift… Himself!! Not to mention, the opportunity to be made more like Him and drawn closer to Him through trials. I learned that people, even close ones or those who loved Him could let me down, but He never would. How could there be a gift better than that?
God’s gifts are gifts. They are never earned or deserved by good behavior. I don’t earn or deserve his love or kindness now as a more mature believer, any more than I did when I first heard of him as a naive child with nothing to offer.
All the same, God has blessed me. after several quite challenging years, I am humbled by his undeserved kindness in lifting the burdens of those trials and bringing much more lightness and peace to my life lately. I see his work in healing things that were broken or painful, and finally redeeming many things I had hoped for–in His way and for his reasons, so much purer than mine. And he made me a different person in the waiting (because growth through trials is often the gift too). But most of all I am thankful for his undeniable presence and care in my life, which has been so evident even from the day I first came to understand the depth of his love for me, sitting on the fellowship hall floor as a child at BVC.
-Jessie
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