Getting in the Limo
I’ve had my times of doubt, wondering what I’m doing thinking I was crazy for moving here. I could be back home working at a job that paid the best out of all the jobs I’ve had, plenty of hours, and was permanent. Sometimes I think how I’m going to provide tuition and rent, buy food and gas. I don’t have all the answers. There are questions in this life that I wish I had the answers too, questions that seem like if I had the answers life would be so much more care free.
I began my journey back in august of 2010, I was lost and hurting but God kept calling out to me. They say here at the college that you may think you found God but really He found us. That reigns so true in my life. Even though every time something went wrong and I blamed God He still kept calling me. I would constantly hear “Do you trust me.” I never understood why, why would a perfect God want someone like me. Someone who by law has led a perfect life, by Gods standard should be rejected. I was never perfect, always leading a double life, living with one foot in the world and one foot on Gods side. I was sitting on the fence not wanting to go all in either way. I didn’t realize until I got here that the fence satan owns. The fence is where the devil laughs, because we think we aren’t on his side but we are. We think that since we aren’t in the world we’re okay. We need to decide whether or not we’re going to live for God or not at all. With God there is no gray area only black or white. The good news is that God sent His only son Jesus to die on a cross to save us from destruction and eternal horror. When Jesus died on a cross He took all our sins past or present with Him to hell and left them there. We no longer need to feel condemnation for what we’ve done. Condemnation is from the devil, it drags us down and makes us feel unworthy to be called Gods children. I was living there for so long, I felt condemned for my actions, words, and habits.
I grew up in a great home, I grew up in the church and was taught from the beginning the difference between right and wrong. But because we are all born with a sinful nature my flesh would always go for the wrong, always lusting after the things of this world. Lust isn’t always wanting or looking at a person of the opposite sex, its anything that our flesh desires. A lot of our lust does come from the eyes but its also a lust for money, power, and possessions. Lust is anything that our hearts desire, it can be alcohol, pornography, drugs, and people.
One side of my double life was the worlds, every day from Monday to Saturday. Wednesday was a break because of church but besides Sunday I really wasn’t living for God. And even on Sunday I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t out partying, smoking or drinking. I wasn’t out committing sexual intercourse but the further I went away from my walk with Christ the more my flesh desired that closeness. I thought that those things would fill a void in my soul. I would always have big long conversations with my mom and dad where it would end in me breaking down and crying and I would try for a while but always come up short. My junior year in high school was a downward spiral, I started taking a Building Trades course at the local high school. I was never actually exposed to drugs and so much talk about alcohol and perversion, I was aware but never around it. I started swearing more than I ever did, the anger that I always had a tough time controlling magnified to a dangerous level. I was hurting, searching in places that could maybe help because church and God didn’t seem to cut it.
This is my situation, I’m empty and feel lost. I try to get back to God but because of condemnation I keep falling. I’m currently not caring about the way I talk or act, and I didn’t care if I died. Church was giving me no fulfillment, it was just a place to go to feel even more rejected and unwanted. The way I talked slowly perverted my mind and actions, I felt dirty inside because of the way I thought and felt. The military looked like a better way to end it all, I couldn’t commit suicide. I didn’t know what to believe, I asked Jesus into my heart after watching the first left behind movie November of 2001 and water baptized in 2006 so I believed I could still go to heaven but deep down I was scared to die. I had my friends that got my mind off of the dirt and junk I felt, all this in my junior year in high school.
Most of my senior year went the same way, except it changed for the better towards the end. Because I didn’t care I was severely behind in my school, I wasn’t going to be done until the start of when normal seniors head to college. There wasn’t anyone to blame but myself and I was reaping my actions. Through everything God still kept calling out to me saying “do you trust me,” it became even more audible and frequent. I started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t God causing my problems, maybe it was me that was destroying my life because of my flesh. We started going to a different church where I am greatly joyed to actually be able to call it a home, and the pastor Rodger Cook a friend and a mentor, someone I could look up too and learn from. A pastor that wasn’t untouchable like all the pastors from the past, everything He said made sense and made me long for more. My life suddenly had meaning and purpose, even though I was still wondering what God really had for me. I started reading my bible and things made sense, things came together instead of looking like a bunch of words. I finally realized that God wanted me to trust Him and that everything was going to be okay. If I actually gave Him all things and laid everything I had 100% at His feet, He would be there for me no matter what. That started my search and desire for what God placed in my heart, a dream that now felt reachable. I looked into several colleges, my pastor gave me some ideas for colleges and gave me some names. I looked up Charis Bible College and it stood out among the rest. I found out about their event they call campus days where you come and experience it firsthand. I left Colorado with an application turned in and a future that excited me.
This is where I currently am, sitting in an amazing house almost in the mountains and loving every minute I’m here. It’s not always easy and there is always a new level of trust that is added to my faith every day, but I know provision is here. I can’t keep my focus on where I would be right now back in Indiana, this is my home right now. As I try to figure out what I’m doing over the summer I’m excited either way, if I have to go back home then I know a job will be provided that I can pay my tuition in full next year, that will provide me a stable foundation for the following year. It will give me a chance to be back with my family and reconnect with my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. If I get to stay here over the summer it’ll be the same way. I’ll have a new place to stay and a job that will provide full tuition and a stable foundation to live on. I’m excited to see where God is going to lead me and I cant wait to earn my full inheritance here on earth. Every day is new revelation, every day is a new depth of focus, a new outlook, a new chance to let God help me out of a wreak of lost focus on the drive of my life and open the door to a brand new limo headed towards greater things.
I want to thank you all for the prayers and support through my journey. I want to thank all of my friends who have been there for me in in the past and my family for sticking by my side. I want to let you know that God is there in front of you holding the door open to your own limo to take you on your most amazing journey you could ever ask for. He gave us a free will, He won’t make you get in it’s your choice. If you choose to climb in you won’t regret it, even when it’s hard and you feel like giving up Gods always there. Do you trust God enough to leave all the junk and hurt to get in and start living? My prayer is that all who read this are somehow impacted, and if you read it and don’t get anything out of it that’s okay because it blesses me to write it. Thanks again and God Bless!
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