My Reason for the Forge

Hey there! Welcome to my journal. I'm pretty excited about this website and all that the Lord is going to do through it. I AM EXPECTING GOD TO DO BIG THINGS in my life and yours.

I think the best way to kick this thing off is to tell you WHY I wanted to participate in the Forge in the first place.

I think, scratch that, I know that God included the Forge in my story from the beginning. You see, the Forge is meant to teach believers to "know who you are, be who you are, and enjoy who you are." If i'm being honest, enjoying who I am has always been challenging. My childhood and adolescent years were marked by dissatisfaction with who I was and how God created me. My life and interactions were plagued with comparison. I struggled with envy and longing, wishing I was someone other than myself. I now realize that discontentment with myself, reflected a greater sin, discontentment with God.

God, in his wonderful grace, began to reveal the error of my thinking during college.

My perception of myself began to change as God gave me opportunities to serve in ministry. He used each role I took on as an opportunity to affirm me, to remind me that the truth in Zephaniah 3:17 also pertained to me.

Zephaniah 3:17 

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing

When I believed that God delighted in me and rejoiced in me, I was able to flourish in the specific plans he had for me. I realized that He did not create me to live a life of longing. He created me with precision for a purpose.

Now, I would be lying if I told you that I no longer struggle with comparison. There are days that Satan comes, and it seems like he's spent hours in the gym, building his strength to knock me down. But God has equipped me, and the things that I believe about his character carry me through.

When I first considered the Forge my sophomore year of college, all I wanted was to learn how to accept myself and how to fully believe that I was loved by God. Three years later, my motivations have slightly changed. I now know that I am a child of God. I know that I am loved by God with a fierce love that my mind will never comprehend, and as a response to that love, I want to spend my days seeking him, growing in intimacy with him, learning how to use who I am to glorify who he is.

The question I have now is not, "Am I loved?" but rather, "How do I respond to the love God has freely given me? How do I use this life to honor him?"

That's my reason for the Forge. Nothing sounds better than spending 8 months learning more about the Father and learning how I fit in to this grand puzzle called the body of Christ. God willing, I have a lot of life left to live, and I want to ensure I know how to use it to make him known.

Romans 12

4"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully."

Seeking Him,

Xenia