Standing as Mount Zion

"Well, that's the last of it..."

I walked back into the little classroom. A once noisy room filled with nap charts, worksheets dripping with wet paint and to-do lists was now clean and quiet. The past few days had been a juggling act between cleaning up classrooms, giving small children goodbye hugs while packing for college and saying goodbyes to my slightly older friends. 

I couldn't help but allow a few memories flood into my head... High-pitched voices yelling "MISS ASHLEEEE!!!!!" as small bodies tackled me every morning when I walked into the classroom. I couldn't help but feel a little sad as I thought of certain kids who came from situations I had no control over, but wish I could change. My eyes mist a little for a young girl who sat in my lap almost as much as our time-out chair. My eyes quickly dried as I recalled the many reason why she was in time-out in the first place. Despite all the challenges that came with assistant teaching, I knew that I would miss the little people I had invested 45 hours of my life into every week this summer. Things are going so well, why do they have to change? Couldn't I obey God just as well staying in Ohio as going to school in Missouri? Are these changes necessary?

Change is necessary because it is obedience. God doesn't give me new because He wants to shake my foundation, He gives me new because He wants to remind me that He is my foundation.

The Apostle Paul understood changing circumstances. From shipwrecks to prison, a host of unfortunate events seemed to constantly be oppressing him and changing his situations. Yet he had the privilege of a living faith and experiencing God deeply every moment. His advice? To "count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I amy gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8).

To count it all as loss is to praise every single circumstance because it leads me closer to God. The friends I leave, though I love them, are nothing in comparison to knowing Christ more deeply. My family, the closest and most precious to my heart, do not have the highest priority; Jesus does. I now welcome the new because it is the result of obedience.

My life will always be changing, but God never will. If I am firmly rooted in Jesus, then I cannot be swayed by circumstances.

 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." 

~ Hebrews 13:8 ~

"Those who trust in the LORD are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people from this time forth and forever." 

~Psalm 125:1-2~

We are HIS PEOPLE! We cannot be moved but stand as firm as Mount Zion.