When I was young, I didn’t have many close friends. I was one of those kids that played football with a group of friends at recess and worked with whoever my table mates were in class just to finish the assignment as fast as possible. I wasn’t in any sports until middle school and attended a small youth group at my dad’s church all the years of my early education. By the time middle school came along, instead of striving to make friends with other students, I strove to be the best student I could be and help whoever asked me to. After I figured out where to get approval in school, I ran after it like mad in 6th grade. All I had to do was show up, do as I was told in the allotted amount of time and go on with my life. Work after 8th grade was the same way. My passion for doing anything and everything well had really caused me to seek the approval of others in a tangible way even if it wasn’t right in God’s eyes. I also kicked him to the wayside a bit because he wasn’t doing anything for me at the time anyway. Instead I placed my identity in schoolwork, “perfect” relationships with others, my job, and always making sure that everyone around me liked me for what I had done for them. I even started to want more of the praise for it when I thought about my future. I had gotten myself into Madtown (UW-Madison) as a first generation college student in hopes that I could gain the approval of whoever would hire me in the future.

During my life getting to college, I knew of God and what his son Jesus had done for me but never knew that I could know God as a friend. I always thought of him as a father who I needed to seek approval from. Hence my search for a church and christian ministry on campus. I knew I needed to at least do what my parents’ churches back home had told me to do and that was read my bible and go to church on Sundays. After attending campus ministry meetings and various churches on the weekend, I began to realize something; I never needed to seek God’s approval. I already had it through his son Jesus. He invites me into a relationship with him by accepting what he has done for me on the cross. I don’t have to prove myself to him and I don’t have to try to please him in any way. God’s word says that I can be forgiven of all my sins because of Jesus and he invites me into a relationship with himself all because he loves me. That was a message of approval for someone like me who had been searching and searching for the next best approval. And so my freshman year of college, I realized in a conversation with my friend Luke that I indeed would go to heaven if I died today knowing I already have God’s approval.

I wish I could say that all my sin struggles are now over and I live a calm and complete life but that’s what heaven is for. Instead I’m still living in a broken world like each of you but with a constant improvement in my walk with God. I still struggle with approval and chasing my own sense of accomplishment but God continuously shows me how important it is to pick up my own cross every day and walk with him instead of looking to others for the next best approval. I am free of all that because of Jesus and am accepted by God. Summarizing Colossians 3:23-24, ‘I now work daily out of my heart for God and not human masters’.