Who's Getting the Glory?

So, I've been here a week and a couple days. It's Friday and I'm excited about the weekend. I've been reading a Psalm and a chapter in Isaiah every morning and I've also been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I've been longing to go deeper with the Lord and really make my time with Him intimate. As I've been reading Crazy Love I've been convicted about many things including, who gets the glory? This morning I listened to my preacher from home's sermon from last Sunday. It was about being made in God's image and the theme of, glorifying God because I'm made in His image, stood out to me. On my walk to work I was listening to my ipod and joyfully singing along in my head to different songs of worship. When I arrived at work, I was in a good mood and ready to start the day. I had a brief conversation with the woman that works at the front desk, but who is also a teacher. Her name is Susan, she is Korean and married to the director of the school. She's very sweet and asked me if I had plans to go to Seoul this weekend. I smiled and told her yes, that I am going to the orphanage and to church. She said, "Oh, you are such a good person." I casually said, "Aww, thank you," and walked into the teachers room to begin preparing for class. After a minute it struck me. I had just robbed God of His glory. It seemed so easy to take credit for the "good works" I do, but it's not me that should be recognized for them. Isn't my whole purpose to be pointing people to the Savior? Shouldn't I be focusing all of the attention on Him? It broke my heart when I realized this because I had been praying earlier this week for opportunities to minister and have conversations about Him. And like He always does, He gave me just the opportunity I was looking for, and not only did I not seize the chance to dote on Him, but I actually accepted the praise that was rightfully His.

I am remorseful that I acted selfishly. I am thankful that the Lord uses my failures to teach me. I am grateful that He will give me other opportunities.

I hope this updated spurs you to think about ways you could be glorifying Him instead of keeping the focus on your self. We are nothing apart from God and we should be demonstrating, in actions and words, that He is the only one that is good, and that the good others see in us is because of His great love for us.


Pray that I would be more focused on glorifying Him and that He would grant me more occasions to share Him with others.

Also, I'm in a wedding in June and am taking my summer vacation time then, I will only get 2 paychecks between now and then. Pray that I will be able to save money so I can book a flight. It gets expensive going to back and forth to Seoul every weekend, but I know I'm called to this ministry. I need to limit the unnecessary expenses. I really struggle in this area, but know that with God all things are possible.

Sorry there are no funny stories in this one, but this is my heart this week.

UPDATE::

Ok so today after work I needed to get some things from the store, so in order to familiarize myself with the area better I opted to walk. First I walked around the block that my school is on. After I was all the way around, I ran into one of my co-teachers as she was walking to the subway. I started walking with her and we chatted about life and experiences and just general stuff, well then we started talking a little deeper about relationships and things of that nature. As we're talking there is a PERFECT "set up" for me to talk about the Lord and my relationship with Him. At first I hesitated, but then I was like, "Kristin, what the heck are you doing? You asked not 5 hours ago for a chance to talk about the Lord and here it is." I'm certain that was the Holy Spirit. So I told her about how I'm a Christian, which she already knew, but also that I couldn't survive this life without God, she really seemed to get me. I continued talking, and she just listened. Shortly after that we had to part ways, but the joy I felt and the overwhelming love actually brought me to tears right there on the sidewalk as she walked one direction and I walked another. I prayed that the Lord would plant a seed and that we would have more conversations about Him. Seriously guys, He is good and incredibly worthy of all the glory.

4/1 This theme of Glory keeps coming up in my life. During my Skype Bible study with my sister and friend it came up when we were talking about 1 John and Matthew 5:16. Then again today as I was reading Francis Chan's newest book "Forgotten God". I guess I know what to be praying about.