“This is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I’ll stand.”

About half an hour before it was my turn to share my testimony with the students, I realized that I had almost nothing prepared. I mean, I did “think” about it between worrying about what to teach that day and where I was going to find dinner. But now all I had were two words on the page, “Pride/Competitiveness,” the main theme of my testimony, and a few ideas for stories to share. When I found myself unprepared like this, I began to pray desperately. After a few minutes, the whole prayer pretty much boiled down to, “God, please don’t let my words be filled with pride.” I chose three short stories for my testimony. The first was the story of playing videogames and competing so hard that in the end, I messed up my relationship with the very friends I played with. The second story was the story of how I had cheated once on a test and ended up being lonely (because of the consequences). The third was the story of how I had big plans for getting into some college. I had back-up plan after back-up plan to make sure I didn’t lose out even if I didn’t make it into my top choices. In each of these cases, it was pride that kept me from doing right and seeing God’s plan. In the first story, I put myself over my friends thinking I was better than they were. In the second, I was too proud to admit that I may not know all the answers on the test and get a worse grade than others, so I cheated. In the third, I put my plans above God’s plan for my college career. However, God never left me in each of those situations. In each, He showed me how to be humble; He showed me grace, and He showed me that His plan is greater than mine. In the first situation, God let me become lonely so that I would go to Him and realize my pride. I could then admit it and begin to think of others as better than myself. In doing so, I regained friendships, and even more, a sense of how things should be in my life. In the second, God showed me the grace of being caught and reminding me that I am accountable for my actions. He humbled me by showing me that His plan was greater than mine. If I hadn’t been caught, I would not be where I am today and most likely, I would not have the fellowship of some great brothers and sisters that taught me how to follow Jesus. In the third, it was by God’s grace that I am at CMU. He humbled my thinking that my plan for my college career was better than His. I ended by saying that we as CMU students are not here to tell them how to get into college or act as if we’re “better” than them. We are here to share our lives with them. These were some battles in my past. This was my testimony to the students.

Now that you know a little bit about my story, I want to share a battle that our team has gone through these past few days. After a meeting last thursday, we (the brothers) got together and prayed. We really felt the Spirit move in us; we were so convicted of our pride. It is out of this pride that each of us had disobeyed God in various parts of our life before. We saw that our pride ran so deep that it was only the Spirit that could bring us to our knees. We saw our own hypocritical hearts that judged every person around us from the families that fed us to the church that we thought was “too charismatic,” from each other to strangers that we passed by on the street. We loved to judge them instead of just loving them. As in the stories, this pride brought out sins that were in each of us. Each sin stemmed from thinking that we were better than others, better than God. But also as before, God never leaves His children in darkness. He broke us down together so that He could build us up again. He also reminded us that though we may experience Him greatly on one day, there are other days to come where He would slowly and steadily mold us. In this time of prayer, we saw the triumph ahead when we would become like Christ, but we also saw that our battle against our pride was just beginning. We cannot love with pride, and yet that’s what we are full of. One thing was for sure though: The only reason we could even begin to love the students we taught, our families, the people around us, and strangers is that Jesus loved us while we were still wretched.

“I will bring praise, I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here”