10th
Reset
It’s been a long time since I feel the way I do right now. I had become a professional Christian. I thought I had everything together. Yet over time this feeling gave way to dread at the thought of God or rather people finding out that I haven’t been living for God.
It’s so easy to attend church and even be in leadership with no heart. I can fake a smile and be dead inside with the best of them. I can be cordial and “do the right thing” because I had heard all the sermons. I knew what Jesus expected of me.
How hollow does that sound? Very.
In truth I was pretty ashamed of myself. My life had become a turnstile of faking and sinning. I think somewhere I really was miserable and really wanted to be true to God, but I acted with no heart or desire to change. I had become a double-minded person, very unstable, untrustworthy and not good for anything. I only write these things down so that hopefully it may encourage someone.
I have been on the mission trip, preached the gospel boldly in the street. I have been kicked out of my house and abandoned by friends. I have lost all things and gained an intense desire to know God. I have been in a place where I felt so strongly that God cared deeply for me and was actively taking care of me.
I have taken that love He gave and thrown it away. I have been the one to hear but not do. I have returned time and again to the same sin. To failure. I have taken what was holy and pure and tarnished it. I have been to the place where I thought there was no return. I have felt alone. Dead. Fearful. I have been without hope.
Yet. God loves.
A few months ago, it got to the point that I had to strain against the desire to cry because of what I had become. It seemed as if every single Sunday sermon was focused on me. At first, of course, I fought the urge. Then I just decided that no matter what, I couldn’t live this way anymore and if God still wanted me (of course He did), I would make a change.
I think somewhere along the way, in my desire to serve or do I forgot that the bible was for me too and that God wanted to have MY heart and MY life. AGAIN I was reminded of things God showed me in the past. Things I have apparently yet to understand even though I knew them. Simple stuff like:
Love God with all you are
I was about to type a list, but the rest doesn’t matter. I’ve really been stuck on this for the last few weeks, and to be honest, it’s where I plan on residing for a while. Love God. With everything. With every fiber. With every thought. To desire to be intimate with Him. To return to being excited to spend time with God and not watch TV or waste time with other things. To yearn for Him to be near me and to truly understand His value of me and His love. His ways.
It’s this simple thing that I feel has brought me back from the brink. I must love God. I honestly just asked God for a ‘reset’ of sorts. I needed a reboot. So I threw everything out. The good and the bad. What I need to focus on is loving God, so that’s what I’m doing.
I don’t exactly feel spiritual about it at all. I literally started reading “our daily bread” and praying along with whatever the day’s scripture was. I also began to ask God to teach me to truly love Him. Since I began this exercise, I can truly say I am changing. So much so, that a friend of mine noticed enough to comment on it.
I know this post is a bit of a ramble, but if I can share any hope with you it’s this: Throw out every formula, every idea except loving God. You see, we can have all things. Know all things. We could be pastors or servants. We could be rich and not have a financial care. But without love, it really is worthless.
Even now as I write this I want to feel God more. To know him and have Him know me more. Faith really is this mess. It’s not meant to be a system that we can sum up in 3 steps or 5 laws. We can’t explain it away with leadership lessons or howto guides. We can’t force it with making everyone a Type-A personality or will it into existence by sacrifice.
We must love God. simple. We must tear down the walls between us, the pretense that we may bring and open ourselves up…laid bare before God. We must not be afraid to not know what we’re doing and just be honest and say, “God, I have no idea what to do…I just want You. I don’t want religion anymore. Just an openness and intimacy with You that words can’t express.”
That amazing, profound doctrine to change us and the world was so simply stated by Jesus, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind”.
For now there are faith,
hope, and love.
But of these three,
the greatest is love.
Reset me, Lord.
