I have honestly tried to start writing this post upwards of 100 times. With such a vague title, and not really knowing which direction to go in, I have explored several avenues. Such as: meat (joking), roadrash (also joking), weight of sin, and many other things.
What I did decide to do was basically just share a little bit of my story, and I think that finally the Holy Spirit is guiding me in a direction where I can finally string some words together.
When you're facing large moments in your life, moments where you know you're going to be changed in one way or another, you're going to have lots of different reactions. I can honestly say most of my life, I subconciously remove myself from what's going on around me, defense mechanism, whatever.
One of my pastors down here in Moscow at my church Resonate recently wrote a book. It's really great. His name is Josh Martin, and it's a memoir of his life, but as a person who learns best from illustrations and is a visual learner, I think I learned a great deal about my own life and walk from it. It's called 'Saturday Nothing'. It's available on Amazon.com and I highly suggest you read it. (http://goo.gl/0bXNj)
In it, he talks about how one of the best things for us as Christians is if our sin was on the evening news for everyone to see. This was really great for me, because personally my faith was spurred at a young age, and although I have never really stopped believing in the Divine power of my savior, I did kind of ignore him for a while...
I did a really good job of hiding my sin behind apathy. I resorted to saying: "I'll just be a good person, that's okay, right God?" God gently replied, "Alyse, there are lots of good people in the world, but they are empty." I said, "But God they look so comfortable and safe, and i'm so tired of fighting, this is exhausting." I didn't hear God say anything after that, and for a while that really made me mad until recently when I started getting back into the Word and realized, I pushed him away, and turned away to try and live a life of being comfortable for about three years.
This attitude stemmed from pride I developed. Now, i'm not a particularly prideful person by nature. In fact, I struggle much more with the other spectrum. I'm one of 'those' people who has really low self-worth and such. I've learned though, that allows me to boast in the Lord. That's a completely different story though, i'll probably explain it later in this post.
I started learning about God in about 6th grade, fell deeply and madly in love, and drowned myself in His word and His truth. He was faithful to pour out of me, and through that I was able to speak truth in love in a lot of people's lives around me in my middle school. Around 8th grade I started getting a little prideful of my newly acquired position of 'authority', and thus started spending less and less time in the word. I started making my faith more legalistic, only reading my bible because I had to.
But I still had my reputation as a 'Godly Girl' so, I had to keep up appearances, you know? That's a lot of pressure on anyone, especially an adolescent girl struggling with body issues and trying to figure out what flirting was and why my hair was suddenly greasy and I didn't have the desire to play and get dirty any more, but to try and be pretty and I didn't really know how to do that. Middle school/high school was hard enough with Jesus. I couldn't really imagine it without him, and God had put on my heart a burden for my peers I found myself in class with 7 hours of the day.
What's wrong with good intentions and trying to improve your walk with Jesus?
That's a question I asked myself a lot of the time after I started believing the lie that I could do my walk with Jesus on my own and that for some reason I was a prodigy and everyone should think I was awesome. The thing is, I'm not really prideful, and deep down I knew I was not the coolest thing since sliced bread. I knew I could not do it on my own, and there entered the deepest seed of people-pleasing.
The thing that is wrong with good intentions and always trying to better your relationship with Jesus, is simply: That's not Jesus. That's not the gospel either. And trying to better your relationship with Him is most certainly NOT why He died on the cross.
The point of Jesus' sacrifice was not to make us 'better people' or 'make this world better'. This world sucks. A lot.
I am severely self-centered. That is a phrase that you hear most christians or church goers say, including me, and it's the truth. It's something they are told regularly. All of my christian friends who are reading this are probably nodding their heads. And most of my readers are christians, so hear me when I say this friends: Following God isn't even about following God, or listening to His voice in your life, or maybe something more obvious like trying to fill your time with service because the bible says so.
These are all very good things, and they do much to benefit the outward image of Christ.
They are not our purpose.
Our purpose is to submerge ourselves in the heart of God and intimately know Him. That's all He asks. To give us the most epic, indescribable, and fulfilling love that far eclipses anything fairy-tales or sonnets, or love songs have ever described.
What also astounds me is just how often people underestimate the strength it takes to love. People are always so quick to be angry, fueled by a burning passion to 'avenge' or 'make right' any situation they were wronged in. In those trying situations, the strength comes, not from ourselves, but we have to have the strength to surrender ourselves to the Ultimate Strength that is found in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The strength it takes to love someone in a difficult situation is so great, in fact, that we need a supernatural power to do it. I think that because we are constantly surrounded by a world where we are focused on ourselves, because that is our nature, we cannot see anything outside of that. But God exists far beyond anything we could ever comprehend.
"Every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17 (NIV)
Humility hurts, and I kind of feel like I might have made this blog post sound like a journal entry, but my hope in sharing this information that it would help some of you who took the time to read this.
This next little slice of my story may come as a surprise to some of you, or not to others who are more observant than the rest of the human population (you hawks).
For a while in a little of middle and sometimes in high school I struggled with thoughts of suicide. There was a time my senior year where I was driving on the freeway at night. The wheel was shaking in my hands because we really needed to get the alignment fixed in the truck (maybe still do, we just roll that way) I was passing the middle stretch between Coeur d' Alene and Post Falls where there's a large field and I had a very strong urge to turn left.
The result would have probably been very bad to say the least, and all of this came from my selfish desire to keep up this image of myself that I had tried to attain from the impressions aquaintences got from me who did not understand the struggles of what trying to walk with God alone could bring.
We were made for community. Sin is not supposed to be kept in the dark, and thankfully He surrounded me with people who cared about me, and would not let me lie in the bed of darkness I had made for myself.
I realize that in light of a lot of events in the CDA and Post Falls and even Moscow area this post may be hard on some still sore wounds, but please understand that this was not my intention. Each person struggles with this differently, and I have no idea what any of those instances were like personally, and in no way am I claiming to know anything about suicide, or self-injury or any other instance where the fruit of feeling worthless is manifested. My only intention was to share with people the struggles I have.
Pity also was definitely not my intention. Again, my only intention was to share with people that this has been a struggle in my life, one that I have struggled with deeply for some time, and at least from my perspective, hid it so well because I lied to myself that it was even a problem. Burying it deep within myself, always ignoring the root of the problem when in little nasty ways it's fruit would come sprouting up out of the grave I had dug for it.
My intention was this: to crumble whatever pedestal I had placed myself on. Not that I ever thought of myself as better than anyone, I just refused to share the burden of my deep sin with my community. Believing the lie that they would judge me, or think that I was failing in my walk with God.
God draws us alone into His presence, because it is probably the most precious place we could ever be. God desires nothing but the best for us, which is Him. That's why He went to such drastic measures to be with us.
"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.'" Jeremiah 29:11
Throughout this season of life, God has sufficiently shown me that although the world is much bigger, nastier, and much less fair than anything I could have anticipated growing up. He has also shown me that He is bigger, stronger, and more powerful than I could have ever anticipated.
God does not call us to bear our burdens alone. And thankfully, He sees all sin the same. An evil that separates us from the powerful love that allows us to live in fulfillment with Him forever.
God asks for all of us because He wants to help us, to fulfill us. He wants to love us. He is not weak. He is strong and He is not sitting on the sidelines begging for us to play with Him, whining when we don't spend enough time with Him. He is diving into the ocean, swimming to the deepest trenches where we have isolated ourselves, untying our bonds, slapping us awake and rushing us to the surface (that was also from my pastor's book, Saturday Nothing).
Several members of my team (including myself) are still short the funding we need that is due May 1st. If you are feeling lead to give in any capacity, please message me on Facebook, and i'll give you directions on how to donate, or if you have questions as well I will do my best to answer them for you.
Thank you so much for reading, and I apologize if this post seemed a little grim. My posts tend to be a little more humorous, but I just felt lead to share this information with you all.
All glory and power be to God forever and ever, Amen.
--Alyse :)
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