So the other day I was sitting in Caribou Coffee. For those unaware (basically, if you’ve never met me), Caribou is my second home. And by second home I really mean I spend more time there than I do at my first home. It is rather strange (some would call it sad) to think how much of my life has actually taken place within the small confines of that building.
So I’m sitting in Caribou and I’m thinking about a post I wrote about a year and a half ago. There’s a high probability that I’m sitting very near the precise spot at which I wrote it. The post was presumptuously yet aptly titled, “Great Expectations.” I do not fancy myself a brilliant English author by any stretch of the imagination, but on this occasion I wrote about the struggles I often face when my expectations are not met. In my selfishness I usually react sinfully, somehow firmly believing that the world and all its inhabitants should rightly conform to my every intention and desire.
This year and a half later, I find that God’s grace has produced much growth in this area, and yet still I seek to keep the thought at the forefront of my mind. I still battle and have more growth to pursue. I end my evening’s journal entry with the words, “God, help me guard myself against selfish expectations” in reference to my plans for the evening. I pray these words as I write them. I have become familiar with my tendencies to respond sinfully when things do not go “my way.” So I pray that my way would be genuinely conformed to God’s way. I consider what God’s intentions for my time and my activities are, and I seek to make them my own.
Not twenty minutes later, my resolve is put to the test. Though the instance was minor, part of my evening had the audacity to defy my expectations, of which I had not fully let go in my heart. I resisted the temptation to become angry and settled for mildly bitter instead. I loosened my rein on my thoughts and allowed trickles of resentment to invade my mind. Much of it was directed at myself, partly even for the very fact that I was allowing myself to be affected in such a way. I knew I was openly submitting to the very temptation which I prayed to be guarded against just moments before.
I opened my journal and began to write again. The first few sentences were half-hearted attempts to admit my fault and fight off this particular temptation. This soon digressed into blatantly subtle bitterness over the situation. Then something went click within me. I can talk about change all day long, but these are the moments when change happens. I knew I would be convicted later and I would again tell myself that I was going to change, but this moment, sitting in Caribou Coffee, I knew could be the moment of “going to.” I interjected a big, fat “NO!” into the midst of the sentence I was writing. “The truth is that Christ died for my sins,” I continued writing. “Around this truth I will base my evening, my countenance, and my joy. On this truth my mind will dwell.”
And by the amazing grace of God, that is exactly what I did. I filled up another page of my journal with words of truth to myself. I finished writing and began in my mind to pray over the words I had written, to continue to remind myself that Christ died for my sins and that this alone was enough to rid me of my selfishness and my pride. These are the moments when change happens. I pray that my every day would be filled with moments such as this one, and that my debt to grace would grow ever greater.
