A Season
I’ve been going through a really difficult season in my faith. In a way I’ve not felt before. It’s not been a desert season, which I’ve experienced before. While I feel relatively dramatic saying it, It’s been more of a spiritual attack. It’s real and it’s faith. This is faith.
I prayed a few months ago feeling like I was stagnant in my faith. I asked God to teach me and show me something new. Just like every other prayer, He showed up. He showed up like never before in my life. He has shown me my heart, my heart in its most raw state. He has shown me how I don’t rest and how I need to. Which is ironic to me, because you’d think I would have caught the hint from my illness. God has a sense of humor like that. It’s like he’s been telling me this for years and I just completely misread Him. I’ve had Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God” stuck in my head for the past few years. I thought it was because of the tough stuff that was going on in my life, and I’m not saying it wasn’t, because it definitely served a great purpose in those seasons. But I now see that was His direct message to me and about our personal relationship.
He was telling me to stop. Telling me to rest. Telling me to be still. I hear Him now. And it breaks my heart. The deepest heartbreak yet. The heartbreak of knowing that my entire life I’ve missed a huge part of who He is. Not because I didn’t know it to be truth, but because I never embraced all of what it means to be a child of His. Specifically, resting in Him and in His grace wholly.
Let me back up a little bit and give you a little insight into what this season has looked like. I’ve felt a heavy burden since I was a little girl of living for God. Living for Him in everything I do. In reacting to the bullies on the bus, in working on my homework, in sharing my faith when it was hard and uncomfortable, in being there for any and every one I possibly could be. I felt and continue to feel the heavy responsibility of living for Him in every moment.
My heart was in the right place, but again, I was missing something. I felt an enormous responsibility to love others like Jesus would. Which don’t get me wrong, is not at all a bad thing. But just as the devil does, he took something that is beautiful and used it against me, used it to steal my joy in Christ. The devil convinced me that I was nothing but a hypocrite, that I did everything out of selfish ambition; that when I started to rest in Christ that I was doing nothing for Him and therefore I was nothing. He got in my head and this resulted in me finding my identity in what I could do for Christ. Which is so deeply twisted and could not be further from what God wants for me and for my life.
The burden of heartbreak for the world we live in and for those who don’t know Christ is a beautiful and yet painful thing to experience. But it also caused me to live my life as more of an assistant to God, instead of a child. In retrospect, I see my relationship with Christ as a deep and genuine one, but also one that I kept myself shackled. Shackled with fear and guilt. When I would finally find some rest and would lay down those fears of being a hypocrite and ingenuine and the guilt of not doing enough, I found myself listening to that sneaky voice of the devil saying how dare I burden my God with that. How dare I bother Him when there are bigger fish to fry in the world. So I would pick those worries, fears, and that guilt right back up. It sounds so messed up as I type that because I know. I understand. I have the head knowledge. I know God. I’ve known Him since I was little. My relationship with Him is real and raw. I know He is true. I know His Word is true. I know that He tells me to come to Him, to lay my burdens and rest in Him. I know He cares for me, I know I am valuable to Him, I know there is nothing ever in this world that could earn His grace and I know there’s no reason to even try for He saved me by His grace and His grace alone. I know all of this. But it doesn’t change the fact that these fears and this heavy guilt was and is real. That guilt, that fear has held me back from allowing me to be His child first and foremost. It has held me back from fully embracing the freedom He’s given me. It has held me back from freely sharing what God has done in my life out of fear of how that would appear from the outside looking in.
But I see it now. And it will no longer control me. The devil has no power over me. God has already won the war and I am a loved child of His, bought with the precious blood of Christ. I get to rest in my Savior. I get to continue to live my life for Him but with complete freedom. I get to share everything He’s done in my heart in my life with no fear, for I am not a hypocrite and I share because it is not me, but Christ who is in me.
I’ve seen how I’ve allowed room in my heart for fear, but I have a God who is greater, bigger, stronger. He has given me freedom. He’s always given me freedom, but now, I am embracing it.
I want to make one thing clear. He has not changed. He is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be tomorrow. He has always been my loving Father who wants nothing but for me to be still in Him. He wants nothing, but for me to love and see myself like He loves and sees me. He wants nothing, but for me to live for Him but with my burdens laid at His feet.
He hasn’t changed. I have. He has changed me. I am learning the power of His freedom. The freedom I thought I experienced through my entire 24 years of life, I am just now truly feeling. And it is powerful. It is beautiful. And I can’t not share what He has done in my life, not just in this season, but in every season.
I’m telling you, Jesus will change your life. He will transform your mind. He will give you rest.
As hard and as difficult as this season has been for me and may continue to be, I am beyond thankful for it. I would not trade this pain for anything in this world. While I have been experiencing the devil kicking it into high drive in the last month with getting in my head and trying to put a wedge wherever he can, I have also experienced a closeness with Christ that’s simply indescribable. These weird times are the times I feel most myself and I can now say, I find my identity completely in Christ.
Faith isn’t easy. Following Christ is not the popular route and it is definitely not the easy one. Living in this world surrounded by sin and darkness, it’s very easy to feel alone. To feel like there aren’t Christian’s left who stand for the truth boldly, but also love with no wavering. Standing in the truth is a tough thing in today’s day and age. You’re either seen as a judgmental bigot for simply voicing the truth when it may not be PC or you’re sugar coating the truth so it’s not as “offensive”. But this is a post for another night. The bottom line is that following Christ is not easy. It can be tough and it can be painful. But that pain is transformative and His love is indescribable. I may be perceived as a crazy Christian or Jesus freak. It wouldn’t be the first time and it definitely won’t be the last time. As James 4:14 tells us, our lives are like a vapor, they last a short time and then you’re in eternity. I don’t know about you, but there’s no better way to live life on earth than experiencing the heartbreak of Christ and following Him no matter how unpopular that might make me. This world is temporary, but my relationship with God is eternal.
Everyone needs to know Him. You need to know Him.
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
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