Thursday, February 3, 2011

Post-Passion life update

It's been nearly a month since 2011 began, and also a month since I attended Passion...here's a little update on what the Lord has been teaching me since then.
-taye


He's roaring like a Lion


It has been one month since I came home from Passion…well, it will be one month exactly tomorrow. The past month has been such a whirlwind for me, for God has been showing me so much that it is hard to collect my thoughts and to attempt to put them into words. 2011 started a new age for me, not a dark age, but more of a golden age, or perhaps a pre-golden age.

I first prayed “the prayer” to accept Jesus into my life when I was six years-old. I have grown up in a Christian family, attending church regularly, and through that, after that day in 1999, I continue learning more about Jesus. It was not until the summer after my freshman year of high school, though, that I truly began to take God seriously. I was working at the same Christian camp where I had first accepted Jesus 9 years earlier, and it was then that I realized that I was not much of a Christian at all. Sure, I went to church almost every Sunday, I read my Bible most days, I prayed before meals, and tried to pray before going to sleep at night, but there was nothing that felt real and alive about my relationship with God, or lack there of. Coming home from camp after a month secluded away from the rest of the world was interesting; I began a period of making changes in my life. I broke up with my baseball/football player boyfriend—I don’t remember us having more than one conversation about God at all—I began paying attention in church, and taking notes to be able to retain what I heard there, I began striving to encourage others in their faith through prayer, etc…
That marked the true beginning of my life in Christ, a true relationship began to develop at that point, and I began to see more of who God really is. That is where I have been for the past three or so years.

Pre-Passion

Senior year began like most. Summer ended, school began, and I started to fall into a new routine; a routine which included church every Sunday and some Wednesdays when dance allowed, reading my Bible everyday, listening to Christian music every now and then, and continuing to try and encourage friends through praying for them weekly. But it had become just that: a routine. Things that I thought I needed to do, so I did them. The fire fueling my relationship with God was slowly and quietly flickering and fading without my notice.
Over the past two years or so I have been struggling with some issues. It sounds ridiculous but they were guy issues. I won’t go into details, cause you probably do not care, but let’s just say a guy had hurt me, and I had allowed the hurt to take over. It had taken over my thoughts, I thought about it every hour of every day. It had taken over my feelings and my mind, and instead of feeling things, I found it easier to become indifferent on almost every occasion when it came to emotion. Around October, maybe September, I was finally freed from all of that pain. God freed me, and I began to rest in His grace…for about a month, maybe less. I continued taking notes in church in an effort to retain what I was learning, but pretty soon I was looking forward to church for another reason. There was a guy there that I thought seemed interesting, a nice person to maybe get to know, but I let it take over, and by December, church was just the place that I got to see that guy, God was now only a small part of what church was for me.

Passion

So that is where I was with God right before Passion. I had Him, He was waiting there to give me all of Himself, if I would only see Him standing there. There was knowledge of His presence. I knew He was there and I knew what He offered, yet I was searching for the same things elsewhere, thinking that perhaps someone else could offer me a better deal. I have already written a short post about my Passion experience (you should probably read that before finishing this one, if you never read it), so I add only a bit about that and continue on to more recently.
At Passion, the Lord truly opened my eyes to all that He is and all that He offers me. He allowed me to meet people who have truly made an impact on my life and have encouraged me so much in their faith. Some of those people’s impaction time was short, God is continue to use others to show me more about Himself.

Most recently what God has been revealing to me is how weak I am compared to Him. In the past, I have been the immature Christian who looks around at the church service and thinks to myself, I’m so much better than them…look at all they’ve done wrong, and compared that, I’m doing pretty well. But once I’ve stopped looking around and looked only up to God, I realize how much wrong I myself have done and my weakness compared to His surpassing greatness.
He’s also been showing me just how necessary it is to trust Him. And not simply trust Him, but to trust him completely. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might” was no joke, and I am learning that it is not to be taken lightly.
Another thing is that His will always happens. Despite what I thought was going to happen, and despite what I wanted to happen, His will is what will happen. I am still working toward not only being content in His will, but also to be joyful in His will.

I wish that I had more time to go on and on about more things that I have been experiencing with God, but unfortunately I really have to go, or else I may be late for dance. I leave you with one command the Lord asks of us: rejoice in the Lord always.

1 comment:

  1. The Lord has really been showing me how far I fall short of the third paragraph below "passion". I am so haughty and prideful! But I have realized this: there is such a freedom in Humbleness and in being yoked to the King! Thanks for posting this!

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