CORNERSTONE COLLEGE

Divorce happens for a lot of reasons. I won’t begin to presume that I know everything about where divorce comes from, but I can talk about one: sometimes we’re too freaking busy.

It’s pretty crazy. You see someone everyday. You sleep together. You talk together. You take care of errands together. You raise kids together. You cook together, eat together, live together, and after all of that, you don’t know each other. Amongst all the things you were doing together, you never engaged in each other. Running around and doing everything together, but never just being together. You had so much to do for each other, that you forgot to enjoy each other. Then eventually, after all that hard work together, and fighting together, never counter balanced with enjoying each other, and you find that you’ve drifted so far apart, and divorce seems to be the only solution.

In the same way, after treating our relationship with God the same way, we wonder why we feel so distant. We feel divorced from God. In all our running around and being busy, even being busy for God sometimes, we’ve missed just sitting with God and enjoying his presence.

And don’t think that a week of quiet time will just fix it right up. After years of drifting from your spouse, it doesn’t just get fixed right up by talking together for 30 minutes each day for a week. It takes a season. It takes a change in lifestyle. It takes a rhythm of loving each other. It’s not a project that you fix up; it’s a relationship that you build up.

This is why we create rhythms in our relationship with God. If we don’t, our time to just sit with God will inevitably be pushed out of our schedules. Married couples need to continue practicing date nights, and we need do the same with God. If we don’t actively pursue this, our wandering hearts will inevitably drift away.

No, I’m not referring to Barney Stinson, I’m talking about the big purple dinosaur. “I love you. You love me. We’re a hap-py fam-uh-ly.” Barney didn’t teach calculus, but you can still learn from him!

But what does it mean to love others? Truth be told, a lot of times when we think of loving someone, we actually just put up with them. Our Christian answer for how to show someone love, is not actually to love, but to try and just not hate. In actuality, we don’t throw punches, but we still hate, and we don’t love at all.

In today’s chapter of the Daily Office, Scazzero talks about how Jesus showed love to the bleeding woman in Mark 5. The detail that really brings out how amazing this story though is in how this woman was bleeding. This woman wasn’t just constantly bleeding out of some sort of super cut on her finger, her bleeding was a menstrual bleeding, and in this condition of not being able to stop her bleeding, she was a cultural shame and viewed on as cursed by God. There were rituals that women had to go through every time they had their period because they needed to cleanse themselves of their uncleanliness. This woman however, was constantly unclean, and she was an outcast to society. If you notice in the story, this woman isn’t even referred to by a name. Nobody knows her name; nobody cares. Most likely the doctors that she went to for help only mistreated her, probably abused her as they operated, and then took whatever money she had. This was the woman that nobody cared about, the woman without a name, the one only known as the bleeding woman. 

Then when Jesus comes to town, this woman has a surge of hope. She’d been hearing this man was healing people, and if she could just reach out and touch merely his clothes, she might be healed. When he shows up, she desperately fights her way through the crowd, and she was just able to touch his garment, and she could feel things change and she knew that she was healed.

Then Jesus turns to find her asking who had touched him. In the midst of an immense crowd, of course Jesus was being bumped around and touched, but he knew this woman and he needed to acknowledge her. Then slowly, the nameless woman approaches Jesus and in fear and trembling explains her story. What right did she have? She was an outcast. She was cursed and impure. Surely he would rebuke her for touching him and imparting her filth onto him. But Jesus doesn’t do that. Instead, he hears her; he sees her; and he gives her an identity, a name, he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Jesus didn’t just put up with people. He stopped to care for them. He saw them. He loved them. To those that nobody loves, he calls sons and daughters, he calls them his family.

Who have you been putting up with that God is challenging you to love today? Let’s not just put up with people, but ask that God would give us his heart so that we could really love even the hardest of those to love. Barney did it, and much more so Jesus did it, and if Jesus is operating in our hearts today, we can do it too.

It’s on our money. This country was actually once a place that thought that God was good and right. This is no longer the same country. Today it would be more accurate if our money were to say, “In man we trust.”

As Christians however, we actually do live by the statement, “In God we trust,” or at least we say we do, but do we? Even as Christians, the ones we are supposed to say “in God we trust,” our lives more often reflect “in man we trust.” 

Essentially, this is what Adam and Eve did in the garden. The moment they chose to think “in man we trust,” was when everything sinful, fallen, and broken entered into their lives and ours. In that moment, instead of trusting God and listening to Him and not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they decided to trust their own judgment on if the fruit would be good and chose to eat from the tree that God specifically said not to.

Here’s how we do the same thing. God says pursue purity, and we live in mental and emotional lust. God says sex is for marriage, and we think it’s fine. God says rest on the sabbath, and we go to church and then go back to work just like any other day. We choose to eat the forbidden fruit because as far as we can tell, the forbidden fruit isn’t so bad. I’m sure that when Adam and Eve looked at the fruit, it didn’t look rotten and evil. It just looked like a nice fruit to eat. I’m sure that when they ate it, they didn’t immediately get sick or anything, and they were fine, but in ways that they didn’t understand, they had invited problems infinite problems into their lives.

God’s promises however, and the fullness of His life, is found in obedience. The forbidden fruit might look good, but God understands in ways that we don’t realize why these fruit are harmful and ultimately death in our lives.

Do you rest on the sabbath? Do you choose purity? Do you love your enemies? Do you forgive your brothers and sisters?....Do you trust God, or do you trust yourself? If you trust God, all those questions should be a resounding yes. Anything less shows what you really trust.

It's too easy for us to get what we want. The world we live in literally tries to offer us everything we want, in the easiest way possible, for the cheapest price available. It's no wonder that today's generation wants to have everything, but isn't willing to work for anything. 

In one way or another, this is all of us:

(whoever made this was being really sincere..doesn't even know how to spell exercise............smh)

We want some things so badly, but this life has taught us that everything should come easy and it should come instantly. And when something takes work, challenge, or hardship to get, we're not willing to do it. Then we wonder why it's so hard to get what we want....because some things only come THROUGH DIFFICULTY. 

People don't stay at jobs, because it gets hard, as every job does, and we bail. People don't stay in relationships, because it gets hard, as every relationship does, and we bail. People don't stay in school, don't stay in shape, don't stay committed, and don't stay christian, BECAUSE IT'S HARD, and we've grown up in a world where things are supposed to be easy.

"We want to follow Jesus into he abundant life of resurrection, but we are less than enthusiastic about following him into the garden of Gethsemane."  - Pete Scazzero

Here's a promise for everyone, LIFE WILL BE HARD. Any walk of life, any income, any location, any belief, for EVERYONE, this is true. As a Christian however, there is another promise: in every hardship there is hope; in every struggle there is strength; in every panic there is peace; and in every death there is life. Jesus has overcome death in eternity, and there is no other hardship that he cannot carry you through. And through everything he will not merely let it be, but he will bring beauty from the broken. Greater brokenness is a promise of greater beauty. Through the hardship, grieve as you need to, but know that God will not leave you in your grief...there is much beauty beyond the horizon. Remain faithful, and you will see.

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." - 2 Corinthians 4:8-12

Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? The story of how slow and steady wins the race? If I were to guess, I'd guess that children don't hear about that fable anymore, because who has time for slow and steady anymore Slow and steady used to be wise man's advice, but now it feels more like urban legend. 

However, you can't rush a flower. A flower will blossom, but it will do it in it's own timing. Only time can take a seed to become a flower. So goes our story. We are all on a journey, and it's a journey that can't be rushed. In fact, if you do try and rush it, you'll more than likely head into a tragedy. There's a reason why the President isn't 22. Time is literally the only thing that can prepare you for some part of the journey.

We are all on a journey. I find that for myself as well, I cannot predict entirely where God is leading me in the far future. I'll set goals; I'll head towards aspirations; I'll dream; and I'll run for the prize, but Proverbs 16:9 tells us that all our plans are in submission to where God is leading us. "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."

And this is a thought that brings me such peace. Who better to establish my steps than the Lord? Surely my own plans are terribly worse than the Lord's. His leading, his timing, his path; his joys, his trials, his refining; his is surely the best there is for me.

Thank you Lord for being Lord over our lives and for being the one to establish our steps. We may have times where we must step into the fire, but the alternative path, the one that we would have taken ourselves would have been to death, so thank you Lord for the fire and for the refining work that you do though it. We trust in your timing God, and we believe that your perfect timing will perfectly unfold all things. Help us to be faithful to the season that you've granted us today that we would be well equipped for the great seasons that lie ahead. In Jesus' name, Amen.

"let go and let God." "the Lord provides." "place your burdens upon the Lord." "place your trust in God."

we've all heard these phrases over and over again. in our minds, we know this is what we should do and that it's true, but in our hearts, it's so difficult to place our lives in someone else's hands.

in my own life, God has shown me that he truly provides, multiple times. yet, whenever a new situation comes up, i feel like only i can make sure that things go the way i want or need them to and that i can only trust myself to take care of the situation. when we read this passage about the Israelites, we roll our eyes and shake our heads - God had JUST delivered them from the Egyptians but because they are scared, they would rather go back to their miserable past. they underestimate the Lord, they do not believe and trust that He will protect them. this is what we do when we cannot place our lives and futures in God's hands. and this doesn't mean that we trust our lives to HIm and so do nothing but wait - "being still" doesn't mean that. it means we shouldn't be afraid, we shouldn't worry or be anxious. we still need to "move on" with our lives and continue doing the things we need to do, while trusting in the Lord at the same time. we must remember that God's plan is perfect for us and the best for us, even if we do not understand or agree with Him.

As I was reflecting on this week's daily office, it was hard to figure out what I was going to write about. Reading about what Francis of Assisi did, not only in front of his father but the local bishop is truly encouraging but at the same time downright scary. Even as my faith has grown stronger and more deeply profound, I still find it hard to outwardly express my emotions and feelings for God. It's not that I'm ashamed but mostly because I do not want to create an awkward situation or making things into a "religious" spectacle.  I started looking at my own life and realized, much like Peter, I have denied Jesus multiple times while working at Starbucks. Not to say that I denounced his existence, but in those times where religion have been brought up, not to mention when Christmas rolled around, I rarely gave my input or didn't even talk at all about it. 

Realizing this, I feel pretty ashamed for what I did or didn't do. I'm not saying that you should greet everyone proudly proclaiming that you love Jesus or even wearing T-shirts that display that you are a believer, but instead, like Francis did, use situations to the maximum and as an opportunity to let people know that Jesus radically changed your life and that he is worth mentioning.  It's definitely not easy and it's not something that'll occur overnight. But I think we need to create awkward situations and allow our true selves to be displayed, not for our own sake, but to show others that following Jesus is radically different than following other religions and that there is something different about following Jesus that evokes such emotions and feelings that we feel compelled to do so. Jesus shouldn't be someone we talk about when the situation feels right or when it feels safe; Jesus should be someone we talk about to let people know how insanely in love we are with him and how insanely in love he is with us. 

"Hence, as we progress toward the center where God actually is waiting for us, we are naturally going to feel that we are getting worse." - Thomas Keating

This quote really puts into perspective what the Christian life is like. Dan's post had a great point in revealing things from our past. When you look deeper into yourself and your past, it reveals a lot of areas of your life that you did not know about yourself. Like the husband in Dan's story, he did not know he has a lot of insecurities about the way he talks. When you start to reveal things about yourself, it can sometimes be discouraging to find out that you are selfish, insecure, angry, filled with hate. 

People always say to their friends, "I know you better than you know yourself." This is a funny concept since, it is your life, how do you not know yourself? But It is easy for people to mask pain/suffering and hide from themselves. My favorite quote from Thomas Keating is "This warns us that the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move. It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self." As we reveal our pasts and reveal more and more about ourselves, it is encouraging to know that the more we get to know ourselves, the more we get to see what God sees in us. 

It's amazing how you can be shaped by your past in ways that you don't even know. I was having a conversation with a marriage counselor recently, and she was just sharing how she was really excited about a recent breakthrough that she had recently with a couple. This couple had some communication issues, and they never could seem to understand each other. The husband would try to explain something, the wife wouldn't understand, she'd say, "What are you saying? I don't understand, you're not making any sense." And that would always leave them in a place of miscommunication and hurt. Well, this couple was at a session and they were still working hard to find some sort of solution to their communication problems, and this particular session the husband was just sharing about his life, and he then began to share about when he was a kid and he first moved to the United States from Russia. He said it was a difficult time for him and just moved on, but the counselor stopped him and asked him to unpack that some more. How was it difficult? He began to share how he had just started to learn english and how difficult that was. Kids would always give him a hard time and make fun of him saying, "What are you saying? I can't understand you. Are you stupid?" That was when the counselor realized why it was so hard for this couple to communicate. Whenever the wife told the husband that he wasn't making any sense, it would immediately trigger the feelings of insecurity and inferiority and put the husband in an angry, frustrated, and trapped place, all because of his experience as a kid. Understanding his past, was the beginning of the wife understanding and showing more grace, and the beginning of the husband's journey to let go of those hurts of his past to become a more emotionally stable and healthy person.

Week 3 day 1 talks about the story of Moses, and how he was exiled as a murderer, but then God used his past to shape who he was and then to use him through that past. Think about Saul/Paul too! He was someone who's job was specifically to seek out and kill Christians, but God took this man and completely turned him around and used everything about his past to use him for His kingdom work. God wants to use everything in our past for his glory, but there are some things in our past that we may not remember, but we never actually let go of. There are hurts in our past that keep us from pursuing God and honoring God the best that we can. Some of these things we know, but some of these things we have no idea about. Let's pray that God would reveal these things to us. Let's pray that every single thing about our past doesn't keep us from honoring God and keep us from knowing the full freedom in God, but that everything actually builds us up to be even more effective for his Kingdom. And if there are specific things in our past that we don't know about that are binding us from knowing freedom, let's pray that God would reveal those things to us today.

Week 2 Day 5

Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,   the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,   and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary   and increases the power of the weak, Even youths grow tired and weary,   and young men stumble and fall;   but those who hope in the LORD    will renew their strength, They will soar on wings like eagles;   they will run and not grow weary,   they will walk and not be faint.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, for HE is YOUR God. I hear this on a daily basis, a small voice in my head whispering to me, "do not be afraid, for I am YOUR God." Yet, within a matter of minutes, my mind is again filled with worries and fears, and I am overcome with anxiety because I'm afraid. Afraid that if I bring up the topic of religion or God or Jesus to my co-workers, that I would have to face judgment and loneliness. Afraid that if I pursue a deeply-seeded passion, that I am just being naive. Afraid that if I make mistakes, I will be called a failure, that I just wasted time. And when everything around me seems so unclear, I become frustrated and ask, "God, where are you? Why is it that I don't feel you near me anymore?"

In verse 27 of this passage, Isaiah asks, "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God'?" Don't we do this often? When our life has turned upside down, we call out to God asking where He was, why He hasn't done anything to make things right for us. But the real problem was always us. God created us to be like Him, to be His children, but when we go out to find our own ways and rely on our own answers, we get lost. And who always gets the blame? God! We blame Him for everything we lack. 

The rest of this passage, however, reminds us that our Father is an "everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth", that for Him, there is no such thing as tiredness or weariness, no such thing as weakness. He understands EVERYTHING that we are going through and He wants us to be able to see Him even in the midst of darkness. And when we are finally able to see who the Lord truly is, and find hope ONLY in Him, we will finally be able to soar on our wings and be like the eagle he created us to be!

Just as Tony de Mello describes in his book, The Song of the Bird, we are just like the lost eaglet who thought that he was a chicken, instead of an eagle. And for the rest of his life, the eagle lived as a chicken, eating worms and only able to fly a few feet above the ground. In the end, the eagle dies having lived as a chicken because that's who he thought he was. This story was meant to shed a light on the way we are living our lives - God created every single one of us to be his eagles. He created for us to be able to soar high into the sky and reach beyond what the world (chickens) tells us we are capable of. 

So my prayer for everyone is you will find hope and renewed strength in the Lord, and that you will truly become the eagles that He has made for you to be!

Week 2 - Day 4

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah fears for his life and flees to the wilderness. Overcome with exhaustion and depression, he tells God, "I have had enough, Lord. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors". Elijah got burned out. People were chasing him down and all he wanted to do was lay under a bush and just die.  

Parker Palmer states, "...In my experience...Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place." I think Elijah got burned out because he realized that he had nothing or could not do anything to change his situation, the only thing he could do is run in fear.

The feeling of "burn out" is all too familiar to me.  Honestly, I was a little hesitant to blog about this devo. Mostly because this was hitting a bit too close to home and I don't want to come off as depressed. But truth be told, there have been times, like Elijah, when all I wanted was to seclude myself from the world and just die. Work can be overwhelming at times. Family can get overwhelming at times.  Put them together and you get a massive storm worse than Nemo.  It doesn't help that I am the "maknae" of the family either. If you don't what that means it means you're never right and their personal slave. Trying to balance between an unstable family and an unstable business is a pretty tricky task and can be both emotionally and physically draining/damaging.  I am often left with a feeling of lost, loss and powerlessness.  There are times where I'll go MIA for a few days, that is usually the result of me feeling burned out.  

Even though, just a couple of days ago, Elijah boldly calls out 850 prophets, proves their god as a false god and then slays them all, he still got burned out. However, while in the wilderness, an angel approaches Elijah 2 times, each time bringing food and water.  It doesn't explicitly say but this is what I believe helped Elijah overcome his depressing state and to continue for the Lord:     1. He prayed for death(selfish prayer derived from thoughts like "I can't do...", "I don't want...")     2. Angel approaches with nourishment "Get up and eat". Also serves to remind Elijah that God provides and is always with him.     3. Time allowed for Elijah to rethink, reflect, repray     4. Angel approaches 2nd time with nourishment saying "Get up and Eat. Your journey is too much for you".  This serves as affirmation that only through God does anything happen, even the impossible.     5. Obedience

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:26–31 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers sisters, mothers, children and fields––along with persecutions––and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Recently, I read The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. I highly recommend this book. In it, Foster outlines all of the core spiritual disciplines any Christian should follow, both internal and external. There is an entire chapter devoted to the spiritual discipline of Solitude. 

Treasuring solitude may seem counter-intuitive, especially in the church. I would argue that solitude is perhaps sought after more in the secular world. We always talk about the importance of community and "doing life" with one another. Where does Solitude fit in? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community beware of being alone…Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.”

Community and solitude are meant to work together. If I don't practice solitude, retreating often and intentionally into the "inner temple" inside myself to meet God, community or "fellowship" will just be a "void of words and feelings." You can meet up with brothers and sisters, but if you are not spending the time alone with God, praying by yourself, listening to Him on your own, your conversations and time spent together will not be life-giving or kingdom-building. It will pretty much just be hanging out with friends. 

Like the story of Anthony exemplifies, growth happens in the desert. Or as Teresa of Avila writes, "Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself." Don't be scared! Take the plunge and spend time completely alone, apart from friends, family, obligations, etc. Because the thing is, you are never completely alone at all. 

From my favorite psalm: 

Where can I go from your Spirit?    Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,    if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me,    your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me    and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;    the night will shine like the day,    for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;    your works are wonderful,    I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you    when I was made in the secret place,    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;    all the days ordained for me were written in your book    before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!    How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them,    they would outnumber the grains of sand—    when I awake, I am still with you.

Ephesians 3:14–19

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on

earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with

power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts

through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,

together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep

is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be

filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The topic of God’s love is, to many if not most of us, one that we’ve read about and heard of so many times that it almost triggers a rolling of eyes and acts as our excuse to stop paying attention.  This at least is truer for me than I feel comfortable admitting. But if I had to attribute my life and salvation as a whole to any one topic, any one truth, my answer would be God’s love.  I know that seems like a cop-out answer, but it’s the truth and scripture even tells us so.  Why else would John 3:16 start with, “For God so loved the world...?”  How self-centered am I that I would grow jaded to something as life-giving as the proverbial truth of God’s love? But I’ll save that for another time.

In our devotional today, Bernard of Clairvaux – a late abbot of a French Cistercian monastery - offers something that helps us take the emotion surrounding God’s love for us and vice-versa and logically dissect it into varying degrees to assess where we reside:

1.       Loving Ourselves for our Own Sake

2.       Loving God for His Gifts and Blessings

3.       Loving God for Himself Alone

4.       Loving Ourselves for the Sake of God

For some of us, it may be clear where exactly we are and to others, so unclear that we’re not sure if these are degrees or a timeline. According to Bernard, the highest degree is that we simply love ourselves as God loves us.  When I first read this, I was slightly taken aback.  As I grew up and matured in my faith, I became very comfortable saying that I love God.  Naturally, it also became automatic that I say and mean that I love others; however, something I feel we’re not as well-practiced in saying is that we love ourselves.  Whether this is a byproduct of my “consider others before yourself” upbringing or a self-fabricated neglect I developed as I learned to often feign humility through self-depreciation, this devotional reminds me that this is an unhealthy habit.  What’s more, I would argue that it brings God all the more glory when we can boldly claim that we love ourselves and the image of God within us from which we were “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Fundamentally, I don’t think any of the degrees listed above are wrong, so long as they are accompanied by the others.  This is something I will be mindful of moving forward.

Pete Scazzero was embarrassed to tell his age. Not necessarily because of his age, but because of what he felt like he should have accomplished by his age.

I have to admit, that's a thought that I can resonate with. It's hard to just do you sometimes. When people around you are getting certain jobs, making certain incomes, getting certain grades, doing certain things, and it feels like you're a little...behind. I never planned to be 32 and not married, but here I am. I never planned to still have school debt, but here I am. I never planned to still not be 40 hours working at a church, but here I am. These things aren't a secret, but it's still hard to post it onto a public forum. Why though? It's because I'm prey to the expectations of others just like anybody else.

There's a nature in me that wants to win the approval of others. I want to look successful and put together. I want to look like I'm doing big things and moving onto even bigger things. Wanting to do big things isn't the problem though, it's my heart that wants to do it for the sake of my own glory. 

It's an interesting observation to make about David when he fights Goliath that he in his faith chooses to do it his own way. It's a good reminder that in my battle against Goliath I could have used stones, but maybe I'll just go out there with a bow and arrow, or a javelin, or just with my bear hands and box Goliath down. Similarly, though the people around me may expect my life to be one way, maybe my life will keep me not married longer than my friends, have a different career route than any of them, and have some downs where others have ups, but it's God's path and God's journey, and if I can keep my faith in Him, there are some doomed Goliaths coming up real soon. So whatever your journey is, stay in faith, stay in Him, and you do you, so God can do God.