“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” Romans 11:32 I will not spend much time on the details of what brought me to rock bottom, as I believe the miraculous recovery is what matters most in this story. So to sum things up, I lived a life of disobedience. Though I grew up going to church and experienced God in random occasions every once in a while, and though I believed I was genuinely seeking the Lord for many months straight, daily reading the Bible and praying, I did not find Him. I was bound to disobedience—writhing in anger, judgment, and selfish pride. Eventually my sins multiplied and I got to a point where I had ruined everything. This is all very vague, and for good reason, because you, the reader, may have your own testimony and if it—in its own vague form—sounds somewhat similar to mine, perhaps my experience can shine light into yours. For through being bound to my disobedience, God has revealed His infinite mercy. So I hit rock bottom. I was ashamed of myself, hating myself more than I had every hated anyone else. I was depressed, suicidal, and I thought of myself as the scum of the earth—the worst of sinners, absolutely worthless. This was good for me. Previous to this incident, I struggled with pride. So to hit a point of despair in going from loving myself too much to wishing I could end my own life was good for me. However, if I had stayed there, it may not have ended as well. Pride is dangerous, but depression can lead to suicide and at least the prideful person still has the rest of his life to recognize the error of his ways and repent. Luckily, the Holy Spirit was at work, and I experienced a miraculous recovery. My whole life I had been trying to logic my way to God. Instead of letting Him in and submitting to His authority I thought I could figure Him out on my own. I was basically trying to know God without being in a relationship with Him, and I had expected that I could do it all myself. My prayers were never for God to open the eyes of my heart and permeate everything and every part of me. I wanted Him to fit neatly around the life I had created for myself, and when He wouldn’t, I gave up. What I had not realized is that it’s not up to me whether or not I “find” God. I don’t get to decide when I truly believe in Him or what parts of my life He can change. He reveals Himself to me in His timing. Until He said otherwise, my heart was hardened. "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” Romans 9:18 What I was missing in my whole pursuit of God was an understanding of the Holy Spirit. I never thought much of the Holy Spirit. I knew the Father and the Son, but the Spirit just seemed to me like a third wheel. However, after hitting rock bottom, the Spirit quickly became more and more important. For it was the Holy Spirit within me that softened my heart so that I could get to know God. I remember the exact day and moment this all began. It was a Sunday, September 16, of this year. I had barely gotten through the week without walking into traffic. I was so ready and so desperate to end it all. And as I weighed my options I decided, what if I just give up? "You can give up your life entirely—like killing yourself without actually killing yourself. Die to yourself. Give up control of your life to the One who created it. See if He can do a better job with this mess you’ve made. Die to yourself, and allow Him to live in you. Meditate on His Word daily, hourly, by the second. Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Him; make every effort to keep your eyes fixed on Him. Become a slave to righteousness. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work and you choose one of the other options. Best case scenario, you get to experience the love that surpasses all understanding, you get to follow the one who has set out the best possible way to live, and you can be free from the burden of your sin, free from the weight it bears on you, free from the pain it grows inside you, free from the poison it spreads throughout your very soul. Best case scenario, you can finally be whole.” - Myself, September 23 So I did just that. I gave up. And since then, I have felt the Holy Spirit working within me more and more each day. As I pray for God to continually reveal Himself to me, that I may hear what He has to say and discern His will for me, the Holy Spirit has been pleading on my behalf that these things may be revealed to me. For the rest of my days I will seek to know God deeper and deeper. Then, at long last, I can finally die and be with Him. “As believers we can never be ‘done’ with God. He is infinite and we are finite; there will always be more of His character to discover, more of His love to experience, and more of His power to use for His purposes.” - Francis Chan, Forgotten God In arrogance I had incorrectly assumed three things: (1) That I could get to a point where I had God figured out, not realizing that I’ll spend my whole life learning more and more about Him and never getting the whole picture because there’s so much more to Him than I ever expected. (2) That I didn’t need God’s grace. Before, my sins didn’t seem so severe to me. It took ruining my life to realize how horrible I really am, and how desperately I need God’s grace and mercy. (3) That I could do this on my own. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we can never know God. It is through the Spirit’s power that we are able to believe, not by our own wisdom. “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.” 1 Corinthians 2:3-5
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AuthorFighting complacency and advocating change in myself for the world around me. Posts by Date
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