Sometimes, God speaks to us through our eyes. It’s quite amazing, really. I mean, despite how far I’ve come in my walk with God and how much God has really grown me in my faith in Him … I still don’t allow Him to speak to me outside of the box on occasion.
It can be a challenge. You grow up around certain people who believed a certain way. You go away to a Christian college, where peole still love Jesus but live their lives in a different way from what you’re used to. You learn more of what it really means to love Christ: to live the life He has for you and to worship Him with all that is in you. You’re going along… thinking you have this rare and incredibly open mind. Then, you realize that, all along, your mind (and heart) could have been open a little more. In some way, you still thought that there was a certain way to go about loving-Him-in-your-own-way– that you had it right all along and other people still had yet to figure it out. It’s one of those hit-yourself-upside-your-head moments when you realize that you still have so far to go. Bummer.
Or rejoice!
Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to grow more in You. Thank you for speaking to me in unique and inspiring ways. Thank you for loving me despite my arrogant religiocity.
On another note, faithful readers, I heard something last Sunday at church that you may enjoy. The associate/youth pastor was closing the service. Before releasing us, he shared with us something his wife had said to him during the week preceding. It went something like this, “I can’t imagine standing before Christ after I die and saying, ‘God, I never watched a rated “R” movie, never drank, never smoked, never cursed, and never danced. This is why I should get into heaven.'” On top of that, I’d like to add that I can’t imagine telling him anything other than, “God, I loved You as best I could.” This kind of goes along with what I read last week in Tara Leigh Cobble’s book Here’s to Hindsight: Letters to my former self. “‘When you become a Christian, don’t dance, don’t drink, and don’t have premarital sex. This is how you act when you love Jesus.’ Legalism seems like an attempt to showcase the effects of love, apart from the Object of love” (p 178).