We’re resurrecting our Hopelessly Devoted series to highlight today’s entry in our 365-day devotional, Daily Grace, which is now available in a smaller (4″ x 6″) travel edition! Grab it in our store or on Amazon.
May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)
One of my favorite articles from The Onion has the headline “Unambitious Loser with Happy, Fulfilling Life Still Lives in Hometown.” By contrast, I told my parents before I started middle school that I would be moving across the country. I judged all of the people I knew who stayed. “What losers,” my 18-year-old self would smirk and think. And I did move across the country, for about three months. I went to a small, showy college out west, and was terrified of the drug scene, and 9/11 happened my first month of school, and so I moved back home that spring semester. I showed up at the University of Mississippi humiliated, with no friends, and sporting bright pink hair. I was like my own warning label.
Thankfully, Jesus sees warning labels like runway lights. He flies right in. It was then that I found Jesus again. Or rather, he found me. Loneliness drove me through the doors of a small church with some old ladies who became my first college friends. I learned to pray in community as an adult. Most of all, I learned that Jesus had changed who I was and who I felt like I had to be. God had to help me learn early (and often) that I had been crucified with Christ. And boasting about anything other than his love of me was just going to leave me empty inside.
“Boasting” seems like a weird thing to encourage. But really, we boast about ourselves all the time, exhaustively. Social media, work meetings, and PTA meetings are boasting opportunities. But boasting in God’s love for us is something altogether different. I failed at my worldly boasts. It turned out I was a loser too. And that was kind of a relief.
