Training camp. Imagine having a yearning and emptiness in your life yet never having the ability to define and understand it. You seek and seek more experiences and opportunities hoping one of them fit the slot in your puzzle that’s missing. Imagine never being able to chase the cure for such despair and wondering your heart experiences because the direction seems to be out of your grasp. Saying peace out to caring where your life ends up becomes the next card you prepare to play. Imagine following a rabbit trail, a hunch that you hope brings newness and restoration to your spirit. Imagine questioning that unknown path, thoughts inside pulling at you to turn around and step back into an area of control and comprehension…
Now, imagine that path suddenly filled with fruit and when you pull from the vines and eat, emptiness dissipates. You kick off your shoes for the ground was made for your tromping and start dancing to the mystical music of all that surrounds you. Fixes and cures need not be sought any more for the mere presence of light and all it illuminates on this path eliminates need for all else. All perseverance paid off. And when you look to your side, there lies an entire family of 50 brothers and sisters standing in the same path, on the same dirt listening to the same symphony. Their gifted individualities resinate but not one more than the other for the sense of unity is far greater. Apart we came but bound we continue on.
This is how my experience at training camp can be summed up. Life forward from this point is still an uncut path, but alongside my X-Sqaud family and team I trek froward with excitement and passion for the Lord has made known to all. Not from anything new He has done, or by my own hand but by simply knowing Him more, becoming one with His light, allowing it to do the living for me. Allowing the light to define me, and no longer taking a back seat to life, blending in with my surroundings.
It’s something I’ve read over and over in my life yet it’s never set in. Never been something my work to achieve, do to get mentality could comprehend. My mind needed a rebirth towards the spiritual and Godly perspective. By golly He gave it. Key word “gave”. For example, prior to training camp when reading scripture such as Psalms 24:3-5 “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” I would read it with a sense of lack, insufficient worth and unmet requirements. Oh but I knew the message of Christ was to cleanse us from this and make us what is written in this verse, but the truth wasn’t apart of me. This started a ritual of telling myself what God said in relation to this verse but living out a whole different meaning. In my heart was a meaning of self growth toward accomplishment, understanding and ownership of my own life and actions. Yeah sounds nice. Sounds like it would make a good strong independent man. One capable of providing much and protecting many. To me it no longer sounds fruitful, it sounds American… Living out the mentality and following the path that we are all there is and is to come. We are a direct response of our accomplishments or lack of, pay/hold the weight of all our decisions and actions. Along with many others this is where my mind laid not two weeks ago. It got me no where but burnt out and digging my own hole of despair, hurt and callousness.
All this to say thank the Lord for restoration for I can not take any credit for my mind now at a point where I can read 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” and TRULY believe it. TRULY want and allowing my life to be changed and different because of the light that now makes its habitat in me. I now truly believe I am one who can ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place because of Christ.
More of how my perspective of God broke away from typical belief and became something of personal unity and power within this soul will be revealed in stories to come. Let the stories and revelations the Spirit brings do the explaining. Let God give light to situations, illuminate the shadows and bestow the power of what that light can be. Let Him bring Bioluminescence to life in all of us (hint hint next post in the making)
Reconciliation: The restoration of friendly relations. The action of making one view/belief compatible with another
Restoration: The action of returning something to a former owner, place or condition.
