Looking at only a little over 136 days ago, my life was a MESS. Like, I don't even know how else to describe it. I had allowed myself to backslide so far away from God... It's like when you have a clean room, you know you like it when it's clean, you an find things more easily. But maybe one day you let some dirty clothes lie on the floor, put a few books on the desk, you know you'll sort it out later. But as days go by those things don't get cleaned up, and then you start to stack things on top. You leave things out, clothes start to pile on top of each other. You tell yourself: "Okay! Next free time I have, I'm focusing and cleaning and organizing this room!" You tell yourself you mean it. You know I remember hearing/reading about a study done on people where saying things out loud, or telling people you're going to do something, gives you the same pleasure/fulfillment as if you actually did it. So it's like giving yourself a little sense of fulfillment without actually getting the job done. You can blind yourself into thinking you're okay. Until one day, you wake up step out of bed and stub your toe because that box of books you've read, which you told yourself you would heft into the garage, is in the way. And you slip on dirty clothes you've left out for, oh how long has it been? a month? I don't remember wearing that.... I forgot I owned that dress! There's that book I've been meaning to return. And you find yourself standing in an overwhelming sea of dirty laundry and items you don't care about enough to take care of.
I hope that gives you a picture. That was what my life was like. But every area of my life! I had let sin so take hold of me that I didn't even know where to begin in cleaning it up. I had placed it off to the side thinking "but I like this here right now, I'll throw it away later." Instead of dirty laundry and knick knacks, it was garbage I was piling around me. Then I would layer garbage on garbage until it was such an overwhelming mess that just looking at it made me want to take a nap. I kept telling myself that I needed to fix this because I put it there. While yes, it is true that I allowed sin to take over my life, I didn't realize that on my own, I had no power to take care of the mess I made. My attempts at clean up were feeble at best. I tried self-help methods, kick a habit in 21 days! I tried punishing myself, I tried rewarding myself for good behavior, I tried to be the driving force of getting rid of my sin. I was so wrong in thinking that I could do it.
My Father is a gentleman, He doesn't force Himself upon me when I am being stubborn. He gently beckons and calls and pleads for us to listen, but He also allows me to choose when I turn to Him for help. And for such a long time, I wasn't. My idea was that my sin, and my attitude was too big for the Lord to conquer, or in another sense, too small for Him to want to deal with. I knew I was in rebellion against the Lord, my relationship with Him suffered, no matter how many ways I tried to get around it. I thought "Well if i go do these things with the church, and read this much of my Bible, and pray this many times a day, I can still keep this sin and be alright with God." It was very quickly turning into a works-based relationship. The Lord simply wanted me to give my sin up to Him and to TRULY let it go. It was through the Lord convicting my heart and through wise counsel from people who love me and love the Lord that my eyes were open to how foolish I had been. I realized that for such a long time I was trying to have a relationship with the Lord the way that I wanted it to be. I wanted to hold onto my sin, but still be in communion with the Lord. I also saw that I was doubting that the Lord would truly take the sin out of my life and that it would be for my better. Sin can be so enticing, can't it? It tells us that we deserve to be happy and complacent and comfortable and that the only way we can keep that comfort is to hold onto that sin.
So through His word, good friends and disciplers, I have been on the mend, growing my relationship with the Lord into a communion that I once had enjoyed but had let grow stale for a long time. And this summer has been one of the sweetest for me. He's growing me in so many ways and I'm eager to listen to Him. It hasn't been easy, sin will always be a struggle while we still are in our fleshly bodies, but it's been so much easier to rely on him when the temptations are hard.
I just wanted to list out some of the amazing things he has been doing for me this summer:
- He has freed me from sin I thought I would have my entire life.
- He has given me such an amazing position in my church's youth group and I love every person I get to meet through there, staff and student.
- He has provided for me to go to a Christian college, which I honestly didn't think was going to happen.
- He has given me a job where the people I work with love and support me and have been kinder to me than most people.
- He has allowed my sister and I's relationship to grow in many different ways and I'm quickly discovering that we can be best friends.
- He has given me a wonderful College group full of young men and women who love the Lord and for some reason love me and spur me on to be more like Christ.
- He has given me godly women from my church to be my disciplers and friends to help me grow closer to Him and to learn how to be a godly woman.
These are just a few things. I can't thank Him enough. I want to always be thankful and sometimes, what helps us to be thankful is to remember what He has done. So I'd like to turn the question on to you. What has He done for you recently that maybe you're not actively thinking about? I always find writing things down helps me to think. Maybe write a little list down and keep it near you. It's always worth it to think of how great God is instead of what's going wrong in your life. I hope you dwell on His grace today! :)
Love Always,
Christina
No comments:
Post a Comment