Seamless Lives of Faith | Philippians 3:8-9

CJ McDowell ‘25

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord … not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” 

The start of this week was a fellows field trip to NT Concepts for our seminar, where the very gracious team helped us to strengthen our resumes. It has been such a blessing to be surrounded by people through the fellows program who care about our future and have taken such practical steps to help us succeed. 

As important as resumes are for telling a potential employer who we are and proving why we would be a good fit, at Breakaway this weekend we received a reminder that they do not define who we are and that we do not need to prove why we should be accepted into Christ’s family. After a message from Cameron Cole in which he shared his own story of striving and defining himself by the work he was able to accomplish, my small group had a discussion about how here in the DC area the pressure to perform is thick in the air, even for the middle schoolers. They are already working hard at padding their resumes so they can get into a good high school to then get into a good college so that they can get to where the fellows are now: trying to prove to employers that they are good enough to hire for a good job. 

At the first Breakaway I was kept busy running around to make sure that things were running well behind the scenes, important work that I was happy to do, but then at the second Breakaway I struggled to release all of the doing so I could just be present with my small group girls. Even working in ministry it can be easy to get caught up in the job and lose sight of the people, or more importantly, the cross. The beauty of the Gospel is that what we are able to accomplish and what we fail to accomplish does not matter because Christ has already accomplished it all. We could never prove our way into the Kingdom, and yet He never even glances at our resumes. 

Breakaway was just that, a wonderful time to break away from the normal routines and pressures that we tend to let define us, be deeply present with our students, and be reminded that we do not need to prove anything to Jesus because our identity is already firmly sealed in Him.