This week I had a conversation with one of my good friends about what our deepest fears were, later that day at team time a teammate sparked the same conversation and I was already prepared to answer. I usually like to think of myself as a person that isn’t afraid of anything but to say that would be untrue. I feel many fears; the difference is that I choose to face them instead of allowing them to stop me and keep me bound.
I am afraid not of heights, but to fall from them, so you will find me going to the top of high structures to look over the edge. I find myself afraid of floating in open water, but it doesn’t stop me from allowing the waves to crash over me and take me adrift. Those are just some surface-level fears though. My two deepest fears are first, that I will walk through life now having a beautiful relationship with God, but not seeing my family as a whole doing the same. I am going to share the love of Christ with the world, which is beautiful, but what is my life worth if I can’t get my own world to see that love? Would my life have been worth it if I am standing in the line to heaven but look over to see some of my family in the line to hell? I am nearly compelled to say no. So, this brings about my second deepest fear which is not being all that God created me to be because I know that if I walk in the fullness of who I am in Him then the people assigned to my life will have been reached.
My family is often the hardest for me to reach at times because they know the version of me before Christ and habitually some of them hold on to that version or pieces thereof. It also takes other people longer, to see the changes you have experienced, than it takes yourself. It makes it even harder because of the sacrifices that I have endured. My sacrifices took me far away from my family, so they couldn’t see my growth in its entirety, and being so far away from them for so long has been a major sacrifice for me also. Let me make note that I don’t say the term sacrifice in a negative connotation though because had I not made these choices, I would not be standing in one of the best seasons my life has seen.
When I began my relationship with God it was mainly confined to my inner being, the fruits that began to seep were just me going to church and taking on new hobbies and goals. Life was rough for me growing up and I made quite a few choices that made life even harder like smoking weed for example as a way to escape my reality, but I think the choices I began to make because of this habit caused me to make worse choices like giving up on college.
It made it even grander though when I got closer to God and got back in college. I have always been smart and getting good grades has always been a breeze for me, but I didn’t always make the smartest choices. However, when the moment came, and I got back in school and was growing with God, I didn’t give up … I graduated Cumme Laude with my bachelor’s degree.
I was met with multiple sacrifices to make it to that place though. I decided that weed had no place in my life and I started running cross-country and playing basketball when I got back into my community college. I wanted better for myself, so I began to pursue it with all I had in me. I got a cross-country scholarship to Lindenwood University and moved to Belleville, IL. After the first semester, I decided to move across the bridge to Saint Louis, MO to do the advance degree program and find a church home. There my relationship with God began to expand to the point that it was by far just confined within me, people could see it spilling out of me. I wouldn’t have gotten there had I not made the decision to sacrifice something that was no good for me or my associate degree. When I got my scholarship, I was one semester away from graduating, I had to sacrifice that for something better. I was also a homosexual at the time and in a deeply intimate relationship that I had to let go of to continue my growth. My sexuality has also been a sacrifice in my life; I have given it up to live in truth and to fulfill who I am in Christ.
During my time in St. Louis, God began to speak to me about giving up everything to follow Him, in a literal sense. So, I did just that, I gave up everything I owned to follow God. I went to Mission Valley, San Diego, California and lived as a homeless individual for nearly four months; learning a mission in the valley. I suppose you can call all that a sacrifice and a struggle, each sacrifice has been a struggle needless to say, but they have all brought about better in my life. God has used it all for my good like He says He would in His word.
While I was homeless God prepared me for where I am now, He showed me just how able and attentive He is and that circumstances don’t dictate or measure His goodness. I learned how to live a minimalistic lifestyle like the one I am living in now. Also, how to live in close proximity with people that both believe and don’t believe and to love them both the way God loves me. Lastly, I learned how to receive and ask for help. This is something I was not good at doing because of my previous mindset of independence.
Had I not let my grips off the things that were once dear to me, I would not be experiencing the awesomeness of walking in my calling. The best part about me saying that is: this is only the beginning, there are so many other things that God has in store, but I continuously have to let things go to receive new and greater things. I have to let go of people, thoughts, actions, previous perceptions and things that no longer serve me. I call it a sacrifice because in the moments that is exactly what it feels like, but who am I to think of those things as such when the only sacrifice that has any true depth is the one that Jesus made on the cross for you and me.
So, for this, I “sacrifice” and struggle to sacrifice, so that the world would know about the greatest sacrifice of all time.
Although life before God was a struggle and I have struggled to become all that God has created me to be, I would do it all again because the struggle is where I have grown and learned the most and the sacrifice is the fruit of it all. My story was full of shame among other things, but now that I look back on it I see beauty, but only because I allowed God to exchange it for my ashes. When I welcomed Him into my life, I began to open up the doors in my heart to have His way with and to see what He has done has been exhilarating, liberating, and worth celebrating.
I want to invite you to become or continue to be a part of this journey with me as well. You play a major role in helping me to walk this out with the Father and being able to reach those that God has assigned me to in this season. I am inviting you to partner with me in terms of support. There are three ways you can do so, first by prayer because it is powerful, second by sharing my posts to allow others the opportunity of experiencing God and partnering in His work, and third by sowing into this work of the Father to spread awareness of His sovereignty throughout the world.
Prayer Requests:
- I have been feeling really fatigued lately and it has been affecting my desire to write. I have been a blogger for nearly two years and for the first time I have not been wanting to write. I am sure it is no coincidence, but I also have other writing tasks besides blogs that are necessary, so please pray that I would get my fire back.
- I think I may be catching a cold, it’s hard to tell. I get random coughs throughout the day, it has been happening for a week or so, but I haven’t developed a full-on cold.
- Fundraising, I have to raise $1,650 by the end of the month and time is closing in fast.
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