Something that I have learned throughout these past 7 months is that no matter what darkness lies in your past, the Lord can make it good. I went through the majority of my 17-23aged years drunk. I knew I was not supposed to do it but if I am honest, thats part of the reason I did. I was good at telling lies, and keeping things hush. I knew how to party without getting caught by parents, or the police, well most of the time anyways. During the years when social skills are developed I learned to use alcohol as my liquid courage and always had that mask on while interacting socially with anyone. It worked, and truthfully I had fun doing it. I have many great memories during those years even though I was on a dark road.
The problem, of course, is that I allowed myself to rely on a substance, and allowed it to have more presence in my life than it should have. This kept up all through my early 20's where I added marijuana into the mixture. There is honestly not much good that can come from a life filled with this. I began to see this and did my best to get away from it on my own. Needless to say I didn't succeed. When you are stuck in sin, you do not typically realize it. When anyone confronted me in it I immediately thought they were judging me and thought themselves better than me. I look back on that attitude now and have to laugh. I was a fool. Proverbs shares so much wisdom! Check it…
Proverbs 13:13
People who despise advice are asking for trouble;
those who respect a command will succeed.
Proverbs 10:8
The wise are glad to be instructed,
but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.
Proverbs 15:5
Only a fool despises a parent's discipline;
whoever learns from correction is wise.
So not only did I have my parents, but also my Heavenly Father. I ignored them both and without going into too much detail I ended up lost and broken. I may post the story in another blog. But so back to the point of this message. God can make all things new and good. I did all these things and reached the point where I realized that I was a slave to sin, and that I could not get out on my own. Once I found the Lord, I was no longer a slave to sin. I no longer had the abusive mentality toward substances. He made things right in my life. He is teaching me how to love people and to make real genuine relationships. He is teaching me how to function socially with the Holy Spirit as my courage and not alcohol. I am now following a lit path. Now this is not to say I am perfect and do not still succumb to temptations sometimes. It happens, but my identity is no longer in sin. My identity is that of a son of the Heavenly Father.
When we fully surrender ourselves to Christ, God uses everything in our life for good, including our past. When I see people on the broken path that I was on, my heart compresses. I feel what they are in and how much of a struggle it is. I truly have compassion for them, and God uses this. I am always the one that ends up talking to the drunk men, or the ones that smoke or do drugs. I can relate to them and I can approach them without having an ounce of judgement in my heart. I want to share with these people what God did in my life and how he changed it so that maybe, they will pursue him too, and allow him into their hearts. It blows my mind to understand the perspective change Jesus brought about in my life. I now understand that I should never have judgement in my heart towards anyone because I do not know what battles they are fighting, spiritually, emotionally, or physically. Judging people never helps anything, but if I show an interest in them and show them love, then maybe, just maybe, they will be able to see the Lord through my actions and words, maybe he can use me to recover the lost and broken.
I now only need $700 to be fully funded! Prase the Lord! Please if you feel led to help me finish off the last of my fundraising click on the donate link to the left. No amount is too small and all donations are tax deductible. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog and for your support!
