About 15 days ago I decided to leave this blog for dead. The decision to dispose of it was due to its association with some really icky sins and temptations.
Icky = selfish-ambition to make something of myself by my writing.
Icky = writing with the desire to be noticed, appreciated and admired.
Icky = believing value is proportional to popularity.
Icky = being dishonest with myself in attempt to be something people want.
It's icky just writing those things. I feel like I got caught up very quickly in a rat-race of messed up motives. I'm still unsure about keeping this blog going... already I feel the icky coming back.
But right now,
I have something I want to say.
And don't have another medium at hand.
SO!
LAST NIGHT (or more accurately, early this morning) I HAD THE BIGGEST AND BESTEST ANSWER TO PRAYER THAT I HAVE HAD IN A LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG TIME.
My life. has been. an absolute mess.
I was very, very, very lost.
very confused.
very unhappy.
very trapped.
AND I THINK THE BREAKTHROUGH HAS COME!
(I know, breakthroughs are really hard to believe in, I definitely wasn't believing that one could happen, but then this morning, I was like, remember God?, when breakthroughs used to happen?, I do, so, I mean, I know they can happen, and I really need one right now, and You know what?, I believe that You can make one happen, could You make it happen soon?, because I'm dying here).
AND THEN IT HAPPENED.
But I didn't really realize it was happening.
My journals re: THE BREAKTHROUGH.
This is nearly too precious to behold.
Somehow you caught my attention and turned me back to You, back to the Truth, back to faith.
As I was praying asking for help, something I thought led me to a memory of something I saw that day, something that I knew (in a gut-feeling sort of way) had the answer I needed. It was a bit blurry at first but I finally tracked it down to the Eric Ludy sermon that I had seen in my email inbox earlier.
And I suppose I wasn’t even that convinced that I needed to watch it, because I very nearly went back to watching Netflix, and I was also talking with Elyce on skype... but somehow when I got to the sermon page it just seemed like the easiest place to stay, and so I stayed there and watched it. Eventually I became so enraptured by the truth I was hearing that I had to stop talking to Elyce.
Ludy began talking about the great moral failure of a Christian man he much respected. And then he began his sermon to fight the thing that I think has been my problem – that it seems all strong Christian people are doomed to fail, that we are weak, and that we will eventually fall against the enemy. Ludy said something like, when he was younger, he had thought that if his failure in following Christ was inevitable, it wasn’t even worth trying.
This is what I’ve felt like when I’ve stayed in bed all day. That I will fail. That even if I love Christ in my mind, and even if I believe that He is my only hope of anything, if I go out and try to live for Him I will fail. Guaranteed. Because I have already. And I do over and over again. And I would just rather not try if that's the case. Because it's not worth it. So not having a desire to try, nor having the conviction to go after anything else, I stay in bed.
But Ludy said that he refuses to believe that we have to fail, and his faith is beginning to shed light for me.
What I need to do, in order not to fail, is to believe.
Believe completely. Commit to trusting my God in everything. REFUSE to listen to all the noise that is tempting me to think otherwise, but BELIEVE HIM.
This has been my deepest problem. I keep failing to live for Christ because I am standing sideways, trying to be guided both by Him and by the world. I have not been trusting that Christ is all the Truth I need, but I have been considering everything the world says. I’ve been unwilling to appear narrow-minded (not turning fully to face my Master and putting my back to the world). I keep thinking that the world is saying something good. I have not been willing to admit that the world has nothing good to say to me. That the world is lost, is in sin, is without the Truth, is without wisdom, is without understanding.
What I need to do, is to choose to believe God in every circumstance, no matter what the world says or the evidence that it hands me. I need to come to terms with the reality that I will appear as a fool. Like believing God’s Word, that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death, while he lay dead for days.
I’ve spent countless journal entries discussing my confusion over what it is that I’m supposed to do with my life. Knowing, of course, that my life exists for the purpose of glorifying God but seeking some way, specific to me, to do this. Feeling that everything is pointless. Like there is nothing I can actually do.
But this is it. It’s this simple, yet the most difficult task that could ever be given a human. To believe His Word.
That’s my work while I’m here in the flesh (and I’m SO excited because I’ve finally been given the light I need to BELIEVE this, this purpose satisfies my heart).
Believing in Him is what matters. And it is something I can tangibly choose to do, every moment of every day. And believing in Him IS what glorifies Him. It’s not the product of believing in Him that I am looking to or placing my hope in, these are peripheral. My life serves its purpose by unceasingly pointing to Him, by believing in Him.
These are all truths clearly established in His Word, but I am finally seeing them now.
Another grievance of my bed-hiding time has been that I felt it impossible to deny myself, yet knowing that life in Christ is only possible if I die to myself and He comes to live in me. I kept asking ‘how do I do that, how do I do that!?!?!?!?'
And I think the answer is by believing.
Because if I’m choosing to believe His Word, then I am by necessity putting myself to death. I’m refusing everything that the world offers me as life, and only being willing to take what He offers as life. I’m completely giving up any chance of having life or reputation in the world. I rely on Him for everything.
What I’ve wanted so desperately, and what I’ve known myself to be lacking this entire time = faith.
Maybe what is finally making a difference now, what I finally see, is that I have to choose to believe despite everything that tells me not to. I have to make a decision to believe that is not to be held in limbo, being swayed by every opinion of the world, which I have been doing (friends, psychology, biographies).
It’s like I’ve been set free to believe that I can practice the faith that I thought I was supposed to practice, but gave up hope on. When I began believing, I remember thinking like Eric Ludy, that the promises in the bible were REAL promises, and then that we should ACTUALLY live by them. This seems like the most grievous of all problems with the Christian church in the world – that we don’t actually hold God to what He says. I want what He promises. To live victoriously in Him as He promises. It seems like the Christian’s of the world don’t believe in victory while in the flesh... and I have been lost to that lack of faith for a while.
What we need to do is believe God despite everything. I’m not doing this justice with words. We need to not listen to anyone but God, and not believe anything but His Truth. We need to believe Him even when all evidence points against Him. We need to completely commit to Him as the Truth.
Another thing that I realized, if not for the first time, than for the first time I remember – the task of reading Scripture isn’t just for the task of reading Scripture (also the task of praying isn’t just for the task of praying, and the task of abiding in Christ isn’t just for the task of abiding in Christ), ALL is for the task of BELIEVING.
Why read God’s Word in the morning? To do the work of believing in Him.
Why pray? To do the work of believing in Him.
Why abide in Him? To do the work of believing in Him.
Believing in Him IS glorifying Him.
Repent and BELIEVE.
This is the work that I am alive to do. Doing this will satisfy me.
When I forgot how to do this, when I thought it was impossible to do this, I despaired of life.
Reading back on journals, the times when I was fighting to believe are the times when I was joyful... fighting to believe is my greatest joy.
This is beyond amazing.
I was grasping SO hard for this understanding. I thought I would never find the thing that would make life worth living or that would give me something worth doing. I knew I needed a task but to ‘glorify God’ was so intangible and unknown.
The fight to believe strings together my entire life. Everything I’ve ever done has been a part of this fight. All of the depressive times and the confusion have been from failing to believe. All of the joy and excitement and hope has been from believing.
The key to my life- believing that Christ is My Saviour, that He has done all He has said He has done, that He is doing all that He says He is doing, and He will do all He says He will do. My life depends on believing Him and is for believing Him.
This life on earth, in this world, I was so confused about it. What the purpose of it is. Why does He leave us here in this world, and why has He made a world that is so lost.
This I haven’t figured out enough to satisfy my analytic mind... but I think that joy and victory of faith is enough to make it worth staying here and fighting. To overcome the world by faith. To glorify Him by doing so.
I’m not sure what will happen to faith when we end up in heaven... we will then truly know all that we have believed. But the situation here is perfect for believing.
So that's it!
CHECK OUT THE SERMON!
Guidance for people like me:
1. Don't be worried if none of this is mind-blowing to you... God blows different people's minds with different truths at different times for different reasons... trust that He will blow yours as is best for you.
2. Humble yourself and learn to rejoice with your fellow believers as they are making wondrous discoveries that you have already made.
3. Don't tie yourself up in knots with little theological errors or lacking in my reasoning. All human sources of truth will have flaws. Test the message and then allow what withstands your testing to encourage you.
ALSO.
(in case you've forgotten).
Having your mind blown by God's glory is an excellent endeavor for the everyday.
And an especially great way of doing this is by coming to know those who have believed Him.
So while your perusing all the exciting glory of God in Acts, and Hebrews, and 2 Kings (... and everywhere else in the bible, but not to overwhelm you....)
Also get yourself some good books about the following people:
Rees Howells
Hudson Taylor
William and Catherine Booth
David Wilkerson
Gladys Aylward
Amy Carmichael
C.T. Studd
John Knox
John Wesley
Edward Payson
John Hyde
David Brainerd
Jim and Elizabeth Elliot
Leonard Ravenhill
Richard Wurmbrand
Corrie Ten Boom
Andrew Murray
Jackie Pullinger
George Mueller
Charles Spurgeon
A.W. Tozer
E.M. Bounds
Paris Reidhead
Edward Payson
David Livingstone
D.L. Moody
Esther Ahn Kim
Keith Green
List compiled from Eric Ludy's Sermons.
Bolded are the ones whom I have come to know.
The rest I look forward to discovering in the future.
Contact me with anything you might have to say!
