At the age of 20, when I made the decision in May of 1980 to commit the rest of my life attempting to follow Jesus Christ, accepting His forgiveness, seeking His will, trying to hear His leading and calling... everything changed.
It wasn't like I had not been exposed to the teachings of Christianity-- in fact, my whole life I had been taken to church by my parents, encouraged to learn about the Lord, to pray, to read the Bible, to have a relationship with God. And through that childhood and at times during adolescence and early adulthood I tried to follow God. But when I failed (sinned), I felt like a sinner (of course) and so being what I thought was a "Christian" seemed, well, impossible.
But, again, in 1980, I found out the whole experience is about a journey...
Fast forward to March 7th, 2012. Like anyone who has been a believer for some length of time there are a few (thousand) experiences that can be shared about the journey of faith. Today, I just want to give witness to the work of God in my life in the last few months (and try to keep it brief, too).
Last summer the Bartholomews were passing through, on their way to the family reunion at Emigrant Park. I have not shared this with them, but while they were here in Salem a couple days, the Lord was working in my heart trying to get me back to a serious effort, i.e. more diligence with regard to my journey of faith. Just by being around fellow God-seeking believers, I was convicted to "get a move on" with God. I also know that many others, including my siblings, had been praying for me in many ways-- health problems, job seeking, etc. And the Lord began to answer those prayers last summer.
Since that time there, of course, have been many ups and downs and ups, but the clear message was and is that, as ignorant as I feel about God (even after 52 years on the planet, Bible school, church, etc.), He wants me to be aware that He is walking beside me -- see Luke 24:15 and the context -- and that my exercise of faith is 1) to spend some time with Him each day reading spiritual material and praying, 2) fellowship with others who are on the journey, too, and 3) then watch, listen, wait and then cooperate with God in the journey He has laid out.
The late Henri Nouwen put it this way in his book Spiritual Direction: "For me, at least three classic disciplines or spiritual practices are particularly useful in the spiritual direction relationship. They can help create space for God within us: (I) the discipline of the Heart, (2) the discipline of the Book, and (3) the discipline of the Church or community of faith. Together, these spiritual practices help us overcome our resistances to contemplative listening and active obedience to God and free us to live an embodied and fulfilled spiritual life."
I am excited about "the journey" again and extremely grateful for a patient and loving God who walks every step with us.
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment