When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. ~Deitrich Bonhoeffer
The beautiful thing about being broken is that you recognize that you are powerless. You recognize that you are unable to manage your life as you know it. You recognize that there HAS to be something outside of yourself that can do what you cannot do for yourself.
Lying in the dark, curled up in fetal position, blinds drawn, tear stained cheeks, broken heart. Suffocating in my regrets, ashamed of falling once again. I cried out. I couldn't anymore. I knew that if I didn't receive help from something outside of me that my life path would ultimately lead to death. I was afraid. It was like I sat at the crossroads, looking both directions, both scary, both unknown.
I heard the whisper in the dark. I heard God calling me. I truly believe that that hardest part of the battle is surrender. Surrendering is just yielding to the power, and control of God. At that specific moment I didn't know that it was God that I was surrendering too. I was just throwing up my hands in surrender praying that something or someone would save me. I think I had always believed in God, after all, I graduated from a Christian School. I had believing parents, and believing siblings. But the world was so enticing and exciting. It offered things that I wanted to experience. So I pursued those things. I chased a boyfriend right out of high school and I was pregnant by 19. I chased money, succeeding in sales and by 21 was making over 100K a year. I chased the alcohol. I chased the nice home, bought the nicest cars, and lived in what the world would say is "success". I chased the drugs. Only to find myself in the miry pit 10 years later. Lost, alone, broken, and having everything yet possessing nothing. I had believed the lie.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
When you come to a cross road in life you make a choice. I was making a choice at that moment between life and death. I didn't realize it at the time, but one way meant dying to my old ways and abandoning all that I had known and worked for. Death to who I had been. The other way was to follow the path of destruction. Both produced death. One produced death from life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:24-25
I died that day and I was reborn a new creation. I have never been the same again. It has been a journey. When Jesus calls us, we should not remain the same. We should change. We don't stay put and sit in the same place, pursuing the same things. Our lives are transformed daily.
If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:26
My journey started in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
What at first seems to be a flimsy reed, turns in to be the powerful hand of God. p.28 Big Book of AA
In AA I found God again. He was what seemed to be a flimsy reed that I grabbed on to. I experienced fellowship, community, friendships, and the realization that God was the solution and His Hand was powerful and strong enough to overcome anything. I worked the steps with my sponsor. I began reading my Bible with a friend from AA (now my husband. He bought me my first Bible). Those days were so sweet. For the first time in my life I was hearing God, and the Word of God was alive. I knew that what was happening in my life was a sign and wonder of today.
Salvation isn't just a point in time. It is a continual surrender to God. Daily laying myself down and seeking first His Kingdom. It is a journey. We must die to the our old self and begin a new life. One that should look different every day that we follow. The end goal is to be like Christ.
We were all born with a created purpose. All created "In His Image". Every quality you possess and every little detail of who you are. There are things you may not currently like about yourself, even things that you use wrongly that God has created in you for Good. As we surrender, His desires become our desires and we become who He created us to be. A New Creation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
The journey begins the day you respond to His call. Every journey looks different, but all require at least these four things:
- Surrendering and repenting because I know that I am a sinner, that I cannot go another step alone.
- Believing that Jesus died, so that I could live.
- Obedience to the Word of God
- Seeking First His Kingdom
This is Important: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. John 14:21,23-24
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33
If someone would have asked me at my moment of brokenness what I would want my life to look like 5 years later. I would have sold myself short. In those 5 years since Surrender, I found my True Love in Jesus, married my best friend, had 2 children (Naomi & Timothy) bringing our total to 6 :), and started Acts 247 Ministries with my husband reaching the "recovery community" -the untouched, the unloved, the lost and "the least of these" in our city. My life is Truly Rich today and I have found that Freedom comes from Surrender. <3
Love,
Erin
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