My Choice to Trust
I was always considered the good girl amongst my group of friends growing up. I rarely indulged in illegal activities or things that I felt were against my character. Although my mom raised me well with no help, but I still had hidden issues.
The issues that I struggled with felt and still feel so big sometimes. It used to seem like it was easier to continue ignoring it, but, as I am growing older I realize that ignoring my issues cause it to show up in another form. I’ve learned that the issue is only one thing: my lack of trust in God.
Whenever I knowingly sin, I used to find it overwhelmingly embarrassing to face God, people and even myself to deal with it. I tend to ignore it and managed to convince myself that the sin I committed is not something I would do, because it’s against my character. It’s against my character but I did it though, and so I needed to seek God and repent.
I felt like Eve. She hid from God, knowing that He would find her after she sinned. God knows my issue, so why can’t He just take it away? Why do I still need to confess? Why can’t He just magically make me trust Him? If I try trusting Him, will all my other problems go away? What if they don’t, will I have any reason to still trust Him?
I sinned because I did not trust God. I settled because I did not trust God. I’ve dealt with soul ties because I did not trust God.
I don’t think I understood, or trusted, how much God loves me, to be honest. If I trusted God I would not fear what I fear now. If I trusted God, I would not run away from Him when I sinned because I know that He will cleanse me. If I trusted God, I would not be unwilling to pray for a stranger or a friend who is sick or needs salvation. If I trusted God, I would be able to love and be loved unconditionally.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!
Psalm 138: 17-18
If I could just focus on this scripture alone, if I could just focus on the precious thoughts that God has for me, there would be no space for self-doubt.
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Isaiah 41: 10
If I could just apply this scripture in my life, there would be no space for fear or discouragement.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4: 6-7
If I could grasp the meaning of this scripture, the would be no space for worry.
My lack of trust is not because God has failed me, but it is because I have not comprehended how big God is, so the mediocre things I asked God for do not come to pass because He has far greater plans for my life. I may not see it now, but I have to know and believe that God knows best.
Now when I ask Jesus, “why nothing seems to be going my way?,” He replies,
“You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will” John 13:7.
And so all that is left to do is trust.
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The True Meaning of Love: The Greatest Gift of All
Sometimes we look for the source of love in places where it does not exist. Sometimes we don’t even realize that love is what we are searching for. The world’s view of love is measured conditionally by what the world can do for us. If it brings pleasure, it’s considered love. If it brings success, it’s considered love. If it brings happiness, it’s considered love. But what about the bad times? What happens when those things that once pleasured us or brought us success and happiness begin to bring us pain? Would we still consider it love?
One of the most contradictory statements I hear is “love is pain,” but that’s not true. We will go through pain, but it’s our circumstances that bring pain. The world brings pain. The devil surely brings pain. In reality, Love brings everything but pain and sorrow. Love should not make us fear (1 John 4:18). Love heals pain when life destroys the characteristics of love as seen in 1 Corinthians 13; our patience, our kindness toward each other, etc.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”
1 John 4:18
So then, what is love? The only absolute definition I can think of is 1 John 4:8 “…God is love.” Love is knowing God and keeping His commandments. Love is a supernatural powerful and eternal mindset that can literally change the way we see and respond to things if we get it from the proper source—God. Love is a choice that we each individually need to make every moment of our lives in order to correctly confront the issues we face.
Why do we need love, the real kind? The two greatest commandments of all require us to love God and then to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). The only way we can love God is if we have a relationship with Him. The only way we can love our neighbors as ourselves is if we 1) actually love ourselves and 2) have a relationship with God to know what love is, because again, He is love. Love teaches us how to live the way God intended us to live. As the Son of the One who created love, Jesus embodied love when He chose to do His Father’s will. He showed His love for the Father by submitting and being obedient, even when He knew how much physical pain it would cause him.
The love of God bridges the gap of sin that separates us from the Creator. Without His love, we would have no sense of conviction, no understanding of the purpose of the Cross, and no real relationship with God. We would continue to toil to do good and follow the commandments the best way we know how, yet still fall short. That is not needed, because God’s love covers a multitude of sins. God’s love gives us a desire to please Him and be pleased with how He originally created us. Love is the best gift God can ever give us because of everything that He includes with it!
Love is more than just an emotion, it’s a virtue. Real love is not temporary and it’s not conditional. God’s love is bigger than us. His love does not always make sense. His love does not just disappear when we abandon Him or when we blame Him for what the devil has done in our lives. His character cannot be questioned because He is the same today, yesterday, and forever. Because of this, His love cannot increase or decrease based on what we do, it’s not performance based. All we have to do is know the real love that comes from Him. In life, we will face moments of pain, confusion, hurt, and many other emotions. Jesus went through pain in order to complete His will, but the love He had for the Father kept Him until the very end. Running to our temporary pleasures will only satisfy us for so long but the true source of love, which is God, keeps us until the very end.
I Choose Truth
During my senior year, just like almost every other senior, all I heard was, “So what are you doing after graduation?” This simple question easily brought me so much anxiety. For some reason, I started to doubt that law was my calling. I was excelling in the international studies field, going to the World Bank all too often, conducting my own independent research in Spain, and offering financial advice to a small village in Honduras. But in all honesty, I was not trying to take the LSAT (admission exam for law school); everybody said it was hard and I was low-key intimidated. I tried to run away from pursuing law, but once I sat down and actually sought God about my purpose, He undoubtedly affirmed that law was for me. My fear of taking the LSAT was not necessarily dispelled after that, but I knew I could do it. Well, at that point, I had to. My goal was to go to a top 14 law school, which required me to have a 4.0 GPA and 170 LSAT score. I was definitely short on the GPA, so the only option I had was to extremely excel at the LSAT. I knew, however, this would ONLY be possible with lots of hard work and a whole lot of GOD!
Studying for LSAT had to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, honestly. A stiff person could learn how to Nae Nae faster than they could learn how to simply understand this exam. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in May 2014, I had to deal with everyone’s Facebook posts of how they’re working at Goldman Sachs, or going off to medical school, or just anything else that had to do with growing up and making the world a better place. But I was at home…studying…my life away, literally. Mind you, I took two months to study and take the GRE. I never knew how much I struggled until I took a Kaplan course and met people who well surpassed my target score. I am usually good at setting a goal and accomplishing it, but the LSAT let me know it would be much harder than I thought. That six-week course, to me, amounted to almost nothing. With all the heaps of books and materials they offered us, I still was barely improving. I pushed my exam back two more months; as I was completely not ready. I felt I had to do something else.
Through the Vice President of a summer program I did at Princeton University, I was able to get a private tutor for free. Can you say ‘God siced?’ Every day, I commuted to Bethesda to meet one of the best tutors in D.C. She literally tutors the kids of all the top professions in D.C. I thought that with private tutoring, things would totally change. But no, I was still struggling. My target score no longer seemed like a possibility, but I still tried. Both my Kaplan teacher and my tutor told me I should focus on applying to schools of lower ranking. And all that time, I had my family reaping heaps of pressure upon me to do well. I felt hopeless. Every single way I turned, I saw blatant discouragement, that is, until I garnered the strength to finally look up to God. God affirmed that law school was my calling, and He told me to apply for the 2015 cycle. Those were the only words I had; they were the only words worth believing. I soon began to snatch up every promise I could find in the Bible. In Deuteronomy 8:7, God promised me that He was bringing me to a good land. In Deuteronomy 9:1-3, He promised to clear the path for me to do the impossible. And in Daniel 1:4 and 17, He promised to bless me with knowledge. I recited these promises over myself day in and day out.
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope.”
Psalm 130:5 (NKJV)
Even after getting my score, which was the lowest score I asked Daddy for, I knew I had to anchor my soul on the words of Father. My mentors even told me to apply next year so I could retake the LSAT, but I knew what God had told me, and I had no choice but to stick to it. I HAD TO STOP BEING REALISTIC AND START BEING HOPEFUL. I VOWED TO LIVE BY THE REALITY OF THE WORD NOT OF THE WORLD.
I told myself that I would not limit God’s “impossibilities” (what I deemed impossible). I knew that if it were God’s will for me to go to a top law school, He would jump any and every protocol for His daughter. So I believed and kept believing.
When it came time to start applying, God graced me with amazing people to help me throughout the whole process. I sent out all 21 applications in complete faith, not having to pay one application fee. And by February, I started to hear back from schools. I was getting into every school (ah!), but I didn’t hear from any of my top schools yet, until one day I took a break at my job (at the #1 immigration law firm in the country, which God literally handed to me on a silver plate) and had a voicemail from a random California number. It was Dean Edward Tom from Berkeley Law calling to tell ME... that I got accepted! Wait, I don’t think you got that. I said MEEE! I had never wept like I did after that. I couldn’t even go back to work after that. I was in total shock and in awe at the same time. Their median LSAT and GPA were 167 and 3.81, with a 12% acceptance rate, and I didn’t even have a 160 or 3.8. THAT IS GOD!
My constant prayer was God please give me what I NEED, and not what I want. And praise God for that prayer because Lord knows I didn't get close to what I wanted, but guess what? I didn't need it! What I NEEDED was to depend on God. My desires were simple: go to a top 14 law school, go to a law school with a top international law program, and go to a law school in California. University of California, Berkeley is all of that, plus more! God, the greatest loving Father, gave me the desires of my heart, simply because He placed them there and has destined me to fulfill my purpose through Him. I didn’t allow those “realities” to taint my revelation of Jesus Christ as the Truth and all that He promised me. Daddy God gave me everything I wanted with what He deemed I needed. My experiences in life will not change my revelation of God, but more importantly, my revelation of God will change my experiences in life! I learned what it meant to have complete faith in God’s promises. I came to understand God’s word as the final word and ultimate truth. Now I’m ready to evangelize on the streets of Berkeley, as well as in the classroom!
Maria Adebayo is a recent graduate of John Hopkins University, where she studied International Studies and Sociology with concentrations in Global Social Change and Development with a minor in Spanish for the Professions. Maria is interested in international law and economic development and poverty alleviation. She hopes to one day pursue a Master's degree in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. As of now, she works at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen and Loewy, a global immigration law firm located in Washington, D.C. During her free time, Maria enjoys looking cute, exercising, taking pictures, riding thru the six with my woes and loving God.