I find myself saying the phrase ” Is this really my life?” a lot these days and yet this is my life. The past several years I was barely surviving. I could tell you everything I was against in the world and nothing I was for. I didn’t trust people and I didn’t want help. I had amazing people in my life and yet I was disconnected from everyone. I went to church in whatever shape I was in drunk, high, hungover was usually the way it worked. I had no purpose, no direction and no desire for either. I was waiting for my life to end.
Today I am almost 14 months sober and 41 days away from The World Race. More importanly though I have a purpose. I realize the gift life is. I realize every day is Grace. I realize the power that comes with knowing Christ. I am not who I used to be and I see that.
Hard doesn’t even begin to describe the last 7 years of my life, but I tell you what it was all worth it. No doubt in my mind it was worth it. This is the happiest I have every been. I still have a long way to go, but I can rejoice today because I know He will continue to grow me.
I can’t believe the life I am living today. It wasn’t a pretty drugs to Jesus story. It took time. It took community. It took many failures. But most all of all it took me surrendering realizing how powerless I am and allowing God and others to help me.
What I am trying to say is don’t think your past stops You from having a life now. I believed that lie for a long time and my life just continued to get worse. There is something inside each and everyone of you that the world needs. If you know Jesus do you realize how much power is in You? We have so much power and yet we settle. Seriously read the bible it’s full of people who are probably a lot crazier, messed up, then even YOU. Hard to believe I know but it’s true. So I guess I kind of became someone I was scared to be one of those bible reading Christian.
I am one of those unusual ones I suppose, but that’s alright with me. I am happy. I have hope. Don’t worry I still keep it real, because shit happens. Life is hard. We all have battles on a daily basis. Real spiritual battles that we gotta fight, but I tell you what nothing in the world compares to knowing the Lord and living for him. If He calls You He will equip You. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for dressing up on sunday, putting a fake smile on your face that does nothing. How many times you have been to church changes nothing. Absolutely nothing. The world isn’t a better place because you smile a lot and go to church.
Let God deal with your shit. Let Him change You . But don’t stop their go out into the world and do something amazing. I mean when was the last time a mob formed where you were doing something and started shouting ” These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also”( Acts 17:6). This is what the world needs. The world needs people who have come alive. The world needs Christians who recognize the power that is within them. Christians who believe the kingdom is here and now. Christians who do there part to make the world a better place, because God cares about this earth.
I will close with this from A.W. Tozer, ” If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as he is usually pictured by the popular teachers. A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful. To do His supreme work of grace within you I will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be.”
Here’s the deal: God can and will use You. Will you let him?
