Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Busy Day Confessions and Revelations

College. Sorority. Clubs. Family. Friends. Oh and then God of course. Confession. I'm awful at making my first priority my relationship with God. Sometimes as Christians we overlook where Satan can work. It's subtle, but it's devastating to the soul.

BUSYNESS 

Yep. It's that simple. It can quickly be put into the hands of the enemy to use against us in a vicious cycle. Let me explain. 

So you start doing well in classes and studying a lot (which is GREAT!), oh one of your friends needs tutoring, of course you'll do it. Plus you're in a few on campus clubs, you know, all great things. "Mmmmhh, when can I do my quiet time?" you think to yourself. "Well I need to get a goodnight sleep so getting up early wouldn't be a good time, and I'm so tired at night after I stalk Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, so that won't work." After a good week of that and BOOM! It hits you. Welcome to that awful draining feeling that, as Beth Moore would call it, a pit. Now there are some pits you can get thrown into, but with me I walk right in. If that's not a confession, the I don't know what is. With great intentions, we sometimes find ourselves face to face with the heartache of a spiritual drought. 

I grew up in church, as most of you know. I became a Christian in 7th grade, but never encountered my Father until the summer that I turned 19 in the state of Alaska. Up until that point I had a great desire for the Lord, but I sat around and became a slave to what looked to be great things, but then found myself being defined by them. To give you a visual, it was almost like I sat in my perfect little house, in my perfect little room, with my hands open, just waiting on God to sprinkle "holy dust" on me and then that's when I'd have a wonderful deep walk with Him. I didn't have a desire to do the work. It was in Alaska when I realized that my human nature tried to fill that God shaped void with a little bit of God, then tried to fill the rest with food, church attendance, my babysitting reputation, and people pleasing. It was crushing to my spirit-man to see how weak he really was. 

After being here at Montevallo for only month and a half, I have realized something else. My friends, mentors, families I babysat for, Dawson staff, everyone that I surrounded myself with was so dense with the Holy Spirit. I give, give, give, pour out, and pour out some more. I don't live in a place where I'm being filled with the Holy Spirit the way I was in B'ham. It's hard. Not going to lie. Now, I LOVE my roommate and suite mates and in their own ways they are teaching me so much. They are so precious, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's a bit draining living on my hall. Not because of the girls, but because of the lack there of the Holy Spirit. Each and every girl is so special to me and God, and I know He put me here to be a light. (I have a bible study group which will have their own blog post. So it's coming soon!)

So as I sit here, blogging in a laundry room, I ask that you intercede on my behalf. I ask that you pray for continued strength. The Lord has done so many things right before my eyes that have almost brought me to tears then, but made me weep with joy in my quiet times. He has brought so many girls right to my door. Just last night, 3 girls brought up Passion and after me talking just a bit about it, they were wanting to go. PRAISE GOD! He has proven to me if I just ask, He'll bring them to me. I desire for these beautiful young ladies to know the wonderful love that lies within a passion-filled, intimate relationship with Christ. 

If there is one thing I could say to a new Christian, or a non Christian at that, it's this. The day you ask the Lord into your heart, not with some prayer conducted or a repeat me line, but a sincere cry out to the God of all creation to come make a home in your heart and renovate it to look more like Jesus', that day is the most important day of your life. But don't think it's going to wash all your problems away and your perfect Christian spouse is going to come slow-mo running to you through a field of barley. STOP! Let me remind you that this whole Jesus thing is the most powerful, loving, heart changing, mind blowing experience. But it's a life style change; key word CHANGE. You will have your trials, oh buddy will you have them. So here's what I have to tell you; this is a FIGHT FOR HOLINESS. Through all of the candy coated Jesus Christianise junk you may hear, take this to heart. We sit here and are stumped to the fact that we don't know why we aren't growing in our faith. I am so guilty of this. We sit back and read our little devotionals and the little excerpts of a scripture, we pray that the Lord bless our day, and we're off. 

Now class, can anyone tell me what is wrong with the picture?

We need to open our bibles and ask for the Holy Spirit to lead us into wisdom and discernment to gain spiritual power from the spoken Word of God and not lean on our Pastors so much for spiritual depth. We need to go into our prayer closets, on our faces and pray, through distraction and fleeting attentions, that our hearts would break for what breaks the heart of our Savior. We need to pray for the molding and transforming of our minds. We need to break out of our little cliques of friends and realize that there are precious people around us that will burn in Hell because they've never asked the Lord to be their Savior. Step into reality and realize you weren't put here by God to be fulfilled with your human desires, but to be an instrument to quench the desire of our Heavenly Father.

OK, I'm done.

All I'm saying is that you are not your own. You are the Lord's. It is our duty to seek Him through whatever we may be going through. He doesn't ask for us to come to Him in perfection, He just asks for us to come. Broken, burdened, bruised, and sore. When we push aside our guilt and failure that Satan tries to hold us down by, we are able to truly claim the victory that we freely have in Christ. I know that I'm pretty sure Satan has my name on a dart board in Hell and is constantly throwing everything my way. I look forward to the day that I will be sitting on my white horse, along with all of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and we will be the audience of God finally ending the life of Satan. Then we'll all live happily ever after. Literally. 

If you know the Lord, then find peace in that. Know that one day we will be together in Heaven and will worship in unison our Father forever. 

If you don't know the Lord, I ask that this post would encourage you to talk to someone. You can contact me or a local church. The Lord "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:4.

I will leave you with this. Once we finally understand how unworthy we are to receive salvation, but ask God to help to except the grace, mercy, and love He freely offers, it is then that we can accept our salvation for what it is and truly live in the way Christ intended us to. Much love to all of you. 

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