“Oh, so you are really religious?!”
I don’t remember the amount of times someone has asked me this question. To be frank, I was for awhile. I’m no longer religious.
Now before you jump to the conclusion that I’ve given up on Christianity, imagine this with me: Two people are dancing together. Hands intertwined, feet moving in sync, eyes are locked. It’s a beautiful and intimate dance between two who usually love each other deeply.
One morning right before worship we were sitting still before God to let him speak to us. In my moment with God, we dealt with my spiritual and inconsistent following. Then, right before the music started I felt God reach down and say to me “may I have this dance?”
The rest of worship, I stood imagining that I was dancing with God, fingers interlocked, feet in sync, looking at him. Then I took this a step further. Our walk with God isn’t a religion. It’s a dance. When we follow him and when we are his disciples, we walk hand in hand, following his every move and looking at him. When he moves, I move. It is a beautiful unity and relationship.
So no, I am not religious anymore. But I have never experienced God in a more powerful way then I am, right here and right now in Georgia. I am dancing with God and he with me even though (at training camp) I am sweaty, tired, beat up, and emotional.
So, I’m not gonna leave my little testimony at that. I have a story already (!) about how God has let me dance out my faith. Ready?
Sunday night, I was feeling emotionally blocked from God during worship and I was asking him why. He showed me that I was falling back to my pain from my childhood. I started to feel separate (although he never left, just the feeling) when pain about my father was resurfaced. I begged God to restore the fire I felt before but he didn’t that night. I still praised him. Because even though I didn’t feel like it, I knew those words were true and that God deserved my praise…
Then that night, in the middle of debrief with my team, I heard God say “you need to call your father and tell him that you forgive him”. Now it’s been a year since we’ve talked and I wasn’t planning to communicate with him EVER again. So I wish you could’ve seen my reaction when I knew God wanted me to do this. My head fell and I started to sigh very heavily. “Why God? I don’t want to reopen that wound!” But he insisted. So I planned to call after training camp. “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” – Proverbs? ?16:9?. God had another idea (but he waited to let me know).
The next morning I found out the message that night was on forgiveness. I seriously, kid you not, laughed out loud when I heard that because, you know, God is such a funny guy. So I prepared my heart for it. During worship I was starting to feel it again and in one song, with words not really pertaining to my story, I started sobbing uncontrollably. Like, ugly crying, hand over my mouth, shaking, sniffling, the whole thing. It was great (sarcasm)! Seeing the pain I was in, a few of my squad mates placed their hands on me to pray and comfort me. I was overwhelmed with a broken heart. Not for myself, but for my father. I realized that I’ve spent 18 years of my life bitter and angry towards him and that I was only dealing with my own broken heart. I was destroyed. I cried out to God because now I saw what God saw, a man who needed him and who was loved.
After I calmed down, God spoke through a teammate, Liz. He said “it’s time” and I knew immediately, that it was time to call my dad and tell him I forgave him and loved him and that I wanted him to find forgiveness and freedom. It was hard but I was excited. I took a step with God, in sync with his dance, and called that night…
Let me just tell you that God is so freaking faithful. He knew that I would obey him that night and he prepared a way for me to contact him and have a mature conversation. I told everyone involved with the process the news of what happened and tears we swelling up. I felt so alive. God was working through me.
The next morning, I was sitting with what happened and I heard God speak yet again but this time he said “well done”. I couldn’t breath. I was elated. I didn’t say anything miraculous that night on the phone, I just trusted God and did something he commanded even though it was physically painful.
Here at training camp, I have heard God speak so clearly and it’s honestly extremely overwhelming at times. But that’s because he is so big and so complex that I can’t begin to imagine his majesty. Getting a glimpse of him here, I don’t ever want to go back!
I don’t want to ever let go of this, not necessarily the feeling, but the intimacy and closeness with God. We have a personal and unique relationship that I cherish. So yeah, I’m not religious, I am relational with the God most High!
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