After God gave me the space to find healing to the shattered pieces of myself (my last blog post). He continued urging me to forgive individuals whom had caused me the greatest pains. The people who had made me feel small insignificant, broken throughout the course of my life. Just picturing their faces made me fill with pain, bitterness and blame.
I thought that if I just acknowledged that I needed to forgive them, that was good enough. (I thought wrong.) Jesus wasn’t asking for me to just look at the problem from a safe distance, point at it and say, “Something needs to be done about that.” He asked me to DO something about it—to grit down and FORGIVE. His aim for me is to look into the eyes of the people I hated and feel only love for them. God’s desire is to ask for Him to give me love for the people who hurt me deeply in order to heal my heart completely.
The commitment I made to go on the world race was secondary to the commitment I made to God. I told God I was willing to give up everything, to live a life marked with joy, peace, patience, encouragement, and self-control. Turns out, when you make a commitment to serve God with your entire life, He will hold you to it!
Man, oh, man, HE IS HOLDING ME TO IT! I have had to face some ugly parts of my heart in this process. Let me tell you! Giving up my career, my car, a house, the remote idea of a romantic relationship, and 99% of my things has not been quick or easy. It’s been painful and humbling to open my white-knuckle kung-fu grip on life the way I want it—in order for God to fill it up with more of His presence. BUT…
I feel more myself than I have in years!!!
I finally recognize my heart again. My joyful-hopeful-dancing heart! The one that loves because He loves me! I feel my faith rising up. My prayers growing bigger, my confidence becoming firmly rooted in something rich and nourishing. It feels so good to be close to my ABBA papa (that’s what I call God) after I have pushed him away for so long. I am so thankful He was still holding onto me even when I was pushing Him away.
I’m growing—and it’s simply because I am allowing God to do the work He loves to do!
Friends, if you have pushed God away, denied His existence in your life like I did, or even if you have never considered a relationship with God, I urge you to let God love you the way he desperately wants… it will change your life and the lives of the people around you. I promise from experience!
Philippians 1: 3-11- I thank my God every time I think of you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains, or defending the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the Glory and Praise of God.
