I would like to piggy back a little on what Obinna wrote yesterday in a certain sense. He spoke of not
feeling terribly sad about the Vandy kid that died in the car wreck over the weekend and how his emotional response is not exactly what he would wish. He said that every summer it seems like someone dies from Vandy, and with a school with 10,000 students, including grad students, it is inevitable. Now before your eyes start to glaze as you skim this I will get to the point of my intr0: what happens if my feelings don't match what I know to be true about my faith in God? What if the tender heart that was once so tender to the Holy Spirit's conviction no longer feels the urgency of repentance and confession? What do I do when I feel as if my faith is not enough? As I look at my own life and the growth of my faith and relationship with Christ I like to focus on the times where everything I touched turned to gold, when the Lord blessed my every word and action and not think about the times that I struggled, that is, until I am in another time of struggle, as I am now. I enter every summer with hopes and dreams to prosper and grow in the Lord with all the free time that I foresee myself having. As the summer progresses I forget those plans and desires that I end the school year and find myself conforming to the world in ways that I would not if I were at school surrounded by spiritual family. I see the patterns forming but still find my prayer life shrinking and thought life becoming dominated by negativity and failure after failure and I begin to ask myself how many times can I fail and still get up and continue this so called Christian life. I can't help but be reminded of all the successes though. No matter how much more convenient it would be for me to just live forgetting all the things God has done for me in the past, I can't do it. I have been marked by the love of Christ. My life has been changed every day by His presence, even if at the moment I can't see it. No matter how frustrated or discouraged I may get, I always have the memory of His hand upon my life. This is both cause for celebration and teeth gritting, for it is my hope in Him that keeps me going and remembering this is beneficial to my daily walk, but when I try to go my own way and am constantly brought back to the way I should be walking I grit my teeth, first in annoyance, then in resolve to take that step back to His open arms. Christian, is today that day of frustration for you? Remember the words of Jeremiah:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
-Lamentations 3:22-24
May the God of our souls bless us and keep us. Amen.
1 comment:
Thank you very much Nick for giving a much needed word of encouragment and honesty.
And you got me on the whole "eyes glaze over" thing, I know my posts can be a bit overlong.
I think that the conclusion you came to is terribly accurate. We are marked by the Love of God and we just cannot put that out of our minds. Even Brian Flemming, the guy who directed that movie that we talked about, claims to still love Jesus Christ (inasmuch as he believes he never manifested physically).
Not to say Mr. Flemming is a watermark of faith, but the fact is Jesus of Nazereth is a fellow whose influence is transformative.
I am currently listening to Ravi Zaccharias' message on "Why dont I feel My Faith". We can alternate between having either emotional or intellectual doubts about our faith, but for me anyway Christianity is the only world view that makes any sense and gives me hope either emotionally or intellectually.
And yes, I have felt "down." You definitely spoke the truth about this summer. This morning I was looking back on my life and I was like "Okay Obinna, you said that after 21 years of age, this wont be a problem for you, you will be doing this and that, You will pray this many times a day, you will know this many books of the bible"
Admirable goals and worthy to be tried but its funny how things you know, I mean, you really know are not necessarily the measure of your faith still get in the way to become obstacles.
"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and glory of of Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses..."
We put our faith that Jesus was manifest, man, God, and Word. Ravi just said that Luther was struck with one verse that changed his life: "The Just shall live by Faith". When considering all that Luther went on to do, it is amazing that you and I can tend to loss sight of this when in despair.
Our emotions are influenced by information, and they can betray us based upon that information, or enlighten us. I guess my desire to feel more was indicative of a need to know more, to grow more. I'm not saying only an intellectual pursuit of God is all that matters, but that I would be better off to seek after Him more. Grazie Nick!
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