Redefining Victory: the story behind the blog.

My early twenties were a series of failures.

My senior year of college, one of my best friends shut me out.

Shortly after graduation, I began an incredibly demanding job, which was all-consuming.  I traveled four nights a week and begrudgingly worked up to ninety hours a week, leaving me exhausted and isolated.  

Then, almost a year after beginning full time work, my engagement was broken off weeks before the wedding. 

And with each of these trials, my gut reaction was to turn and ask God:  “Why?” 

I didn’t understand what my sovereign Lord was doing by allowing these circumstances.  Not only was I hurt; I was bitter and confused. 

“Where did I do wrong, Lord?  What could you possibly be teaching me with such painful lesson plans?” 

“How could You let me walk through these trials?” 

“And especially like this, one exhausting issue after another?“

Initially, I clung to my bitterness.  But, by God’s grace, He reminded me that my only shot at peace, at rest, my only hope for restoration was in Him.  So in the midst of these trials, I began to ever so earnestly to draw close to the Lord. 

I prayed.  I fasted.  I memorized scripture.  I went to Biblical counseling and invested in my community. With a clear conscience I can say none of these things were driven by legalism, but with a genuine desire to honor God as I tried to heal and release my bitterness and confusion.  And these investments paid off.  Certainly not instantly, but soon enough (after ~8 months), my perspective shifted. I trusted and loved God more.  I knew more of His character.  My thirst for Him grew and I sensed a closer communion with the Holy Spirit.

Yet, despite continued obedience and growth, these burdens continued to weigh on me in some form or fashion:  My friend apologized but the friendship was still damaged… I enjoyed work more, but it was still costly to many of my relationships… and the broken engagement, just… kept hurting.

So as each of these ‘Goliaths’ not only arrived at my doorstep but chose to lurk and linger, though I was drawn close to God, though I ached for Heaven in a new way, though I grew to love and trust God more than I knew was even possible, I continued to anticipate my own version of resolution and reconciliation, as those were the components by which I defined victory. 

I wanted my friendship back.  I wanted work to be easier.  I wanted to magically undo my broken engagement. 

But, none of these things happened.  I felt defeated.

I was being faithful.  What was I still doing wrong to warrant the continuation of these circumstances?  Why did I still feel like this?  What was I missing?

During a sermon, I was reminded that these circumstances and my lack of resolution had no bearing on whether or not I had achieved any type of victory. My perspective was all wrong.  I was graciously reminded, just as you can’t look at a smaller church budget or a larger congregation and determine that God has put his hand of blessing one place and not another, I couldn’t look at the lack of resolution in my own life and assert I had somehow ‘lost’.  A bigger budget, more campuses, more members… more friends, a good job, even an understanding of why we’ve endured the hardships that we have… none of those things mean we’re winning.  If we get more of Jesus, that’s winning.

Sitting in my pew that morning, that love-hate feeling of conviction twisted on my heart.  Reflecting on my own Goliaths, I realized I had been defining success in all the wrong ways.  I had valued earthly restoration over eternal relationship. My inner dialogue had far too many ‘but’s in it.

“I know God more personally now, but… this relationship still hasn’t been restored.”

“I trust God more now, but… I still feel hurt.”

“I ache for Heaven now, but…” and on and on it went. 

And yet, the first half of those sentences is all that really matters.

Because, if you draw closer to Jesus – if you glorify God by learning about Him and knowing Him, if you become more like Christ, if you love God more deeply and allow that love to overflow into your other relationships – that’s winning. 

And that’s how we should be defining our personal victories. 

But we all know that doing this, chasing an eternal definition of victory day in and day out is difficult, which is why we’ve started this blog. Our hope and prayer is that this blog will serve as an encouragement to consistently refocus our attention on that which is eternal and learn to define victory the same way our Father does: in Christ.

In John 10, Christ says: I came that they may have life and have it to the full. 

May we learn to desire our Father’s definition of ‘full’ as opposed to the world’s.