I haven't posted in a while.. I have some half-finished entries that I will be finishing at some point, hopefully soon! Anyway, now for this entry.. I will try keep this short so I actually finish in one sitting.
Back in March or April, the dean for our dorm emailed us CAs (I'm a community associate for my dorm which is pretty similar to being an RA except we get paid much less) saying we could request rooms for the fall. There's a room down the hall which I have been eyeing all year, I was considering moving into it last year but then they made it a double. The room has a number of benefits over my current room, including excellent cell phone reception, two windows (one of only four rooms in the dorm with two windows), extra space, a nice layout, and more. So anyway this year I deliberated for a while about if I really wanted the room or not, because it did seem unnecessary for me to have such a large room (even bigger than my current room), but eventually I said oh heck and emailed the housing person requesting it.
Fast forward to June, and the two residents of the room moved out. A few days later, I noticed that someone new had moved in. I talked to her and found out that lo and behold, not only was the room a single but she was planning on staying for the entire following year, not just the summer. I was somewhat shocked that the housing person hadn't given me the room, and it didn't help when the first thing the new occupant said to me after I explained that I was supposed to have this room was "well, you can come and visit me and I can gloat!" She also rather liked the room for the many reason I listed above.
At this point somehow my mindset towards the room changed subconsciously from approximately "it would be nice to have the room, but if they're going to make it a double then I wouldn't mind keeping my current room" to "I must have that room". A day or so later I asked the new person if she would mind moving to another room and so I could move into that room. She was of course resistant to the idea, but we eventually agreed she would think about (but not yet commit to) the possibility of moving to the exact same room but one floor down. We found out the one-floor-down room would indeed be available in August and the room switching could occur then. She was still not sure if she wanted to move, even after looking at the second floor room. (the room below is slightly worse for several reasons, but still far better than normal rooms).
I was still not really sure what to make of this, and was getting increasingly upset at the current resident that she wasn't willing to move. I definitely had been having thoughts that I was *entitled* to the room, as a CA who had done a lot of work for the dorm, and even just as a older resident in the dorm (non-CA people regularly upgrade their rooms over the summer). Surely, it was only due to an administrative mistake (more or less) that she had the room instead of me, I reasoned. I was also thinking at times that I didn't really *need* the room, and that it wouldn't be so bad with my current room, and that the current resident would in fact be happier in her current room than the one in the floor below, but I was really having a hard time convincing myself of these things.
Anyway, so yesterday she mentioned that she had that day emailed the housing person saying she was OK with switching rooms to the one a floor down. Immediately previously to this, I had actually been getting mad at the current resident in my mind nominally because of her resistance to moving (or so my mind justified it) but I guess really because she was the obstacle in the way of my getting that room. Immediately I felt quite convicted that (1) I was being quite greedy in trying to get that room, particularly with my asking the current resident to leave, (2) I really didn't *need* the room, (3) it is quite wrong to have my feelings of "entitlement" towards the room, and other things in general--I tend to feel this about other situations too. (I had also been convicted about this "entitlement" to some extent earlier in the month but not really done anything about it). (4), I also realized more that the current resident really did like the room more than she would like the second floor room--that she would be happier on the third floor (for assorted reasons external to the room), and (5) the room was getting in between me and God, that to some extent I was seeking my happiness in the room rather than in God. And that the people who write the things we read that Glen sends out and are in the Devotional Classics book really probably would have been quite happy with an even smaller room than the one I have currently (because they value knowing God above all other things, and find their happiness in God not in silly rooms).
For the next day or so I really wrestled with this, knowing I should let her keep the room but my mind all the while trying to justify how it would be ok to do the room switch. Finally I decided it would be easier to email the housing person cancelling the switch than talk to the current resident, so I did that first. I haven't talked to the resident yet, as she was occupied earlier when I went by and I chickened out during the times before that, but will do soon. So it does have a happy ending, the current resident's heart was changed in her now being generous and wanting to give me the room, and my heart was changed too.
Here are also some scripture passages and other things, the applicability of which will hopefully be obvious.
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"
"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
-- Mark 10:17-25
And my God will ***meet all your needs*** according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
-- Philippians 4:19
"Just before beginning the ministry in Changte, Jonathan [a missionary to China] wrote on the flyleaf of his Bible in 1894, “Seven Rules for Daily Living”:
- 1) Seek to give much, expect nothing.
- 2) Put the very best construction on the actions of others.
- 3) Never let a day pass without at least a quarter of an hour spent in the study of the Bible.
- 4) Never omit daily morning and evening private prayer and devotion.
- 5) In all things seek to know God’s Will and when known obey at any cost.
- 6) Seek to cultivate a quiet prayerful spirit.
- 7) Seek each day to do or say something to further Christianity among the heathen (p. 355).
- 2) Put the very best construction on the actions of others.
All documentation is from his official biography written by his wife, Rosalind Goforth. Goforth of China. Zondervan, 1937."
-- From http://www.urbana.org/wtoday.witnesses.cfm?article=51
"But this year I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, “What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father, do you desire done this minute?”
It is clear that this is exactly what Jesus was doing all day every day. But it is not what His followers have been doing in very large numbers."
--From the Letters by a Modern Mystic that Glen sent out, p. 5 (Jan. 20)
Finally, this whole situation begs the following questions:
How do we prevent this sort of thing in the future? In particular, how do we prevent from being blinded by our own desires or Satan's lies or other things that prevent us from hearing God? ...especially in situations where it's really hard to discern our own feelings about things? How can we be sure to be responsive to God's leadings, even when it's hard?
Comments are welcome about these or other things! This was quite a bit longer than I had anticipated, heh.
May we all be willing to respond to God's Will, at any cost!
-Alan
