Thursday, April 2, 2009

Beginning My Journey

I've chosen to start a new blog for my spiritual journey. I'm hoping it will help to hold me accountable to continuing in my journey. I've chosen the address "pursuing His presence" because that's my goal, I suppose.

When I was younger, and before I made poor choices to walk away from the Lord, I had a passion. I had a zeal for Jesus, an unmistakable joy - one that couldn't be quieted. I FELT the Lord working in my life. I felt the Spirit whispering to me, changing me, guiding me. I talked with God. I feel like I knew Him intimately. I prayed intensely. I sought Him and His direction. I FELT His Presence all around me - in the good times and in the bad.

But then I made the stupid choices to walk away from His love. To pursue unrighteousness and sin. I experimented in lots of different kinds of sin, lots of earthly pleasures. I was away from the Lord for four full years. It started in January of 2001. I discovered that dabbling in sin was a dangerously slippery downhill slope. Once you get started on it, it's VERY difficult to have the strength to turn around and climb back up. I suppose I became "full-blown" in May or June of 2001 - I gave myself over to the worldly things, I guess. Did whatever felt good, didn't go to church, said things I wish I hadn't, did things I still cringe over. I knew the whole time that God was calling me back to Him, but I ignored Him. I knew that even though I surrounded myself with people that were "lifers" and would always be in the lifestyle we were in, that I wouldn't be. I knew that a day would come when I would give myself back over the Lord. But I fought that knowledge intensely and rebelled as much as I could. Looking back, I can see that I BELONGED to the Lord, and that's how I knew that one day I would return to Him.

I finally became broken enough in February of 2005. I had started the journey in about March of so of 2004, but never fully committed to it. I cleaned up a little bit, but when the true tests came, went right back into the sinful lifestyle again. But Praise God for His enduring faithfulness, because He sought me and called me back to Himself. He stripped me of my friends, my soulmate (through faults of my own, I might add), and my habits. He isolated me from everything that had been defining my life so that the only thing I had left was Him. My heart ached. I was utterly alone. Through this loneliness, He began softening my heart. Finally, in February of 2005, I was talking to my soulmate (now husband) again, and he was also re-discovering the Lord after 7 years of being away! Isn't that amazing? We actually made the decision to rededicate our lives to Christ and turn back to the Lord - TOGETHER. It was over the phone one night at like 3am. We both made the decision to cold-turkey quit our lives of sin and "get right" with the Lord. We quit our old ways, we turned away from the sin, we got back into churches. Of course, we're married now - and we wrote our dedication of our marriage to the Lord into our vows. :)

So, here I am now. Our marriage is still dedicated to the Lord. We trust in Him, and He has blessed us so much. We have two beautiful children. We go to church - Calvary Chapel - and have a wonderful "family" there. We keep the "bad" things out of our lives, we plan on homeschooling our kids, we try to walk uprightly and we are teaching our children to pray.

But somewhere along the way - I either lost it or never regained it - my passion disappeared. The ONEness, the peace, the JOY ... all of these things which used to totally encase my heart and soul every day ... these are somehow missing. Maybe not missing entirely, but they aren't available to me in the zealous quantities that they once were. I don't want to be the Christian who just goes to church on Sundays and lives a good, quiet life. I want to be sold-out, passionate, and FULL OF LIFE. Full of the Spirit.

I want to FEEL God's presence in my life again. I haven't felt that stirring inside of me in so long. I desire to have a real, working relationship with the Father again. I desire to know Him intimately and to seek Him. I long for the times when I could be quiet and feel Him speaking to my heart.

Too long has the fire been out. I don't want to be coals anymore, I want the FLAMES!! I want to FEEL God's presence. I used to smile ALL THE TIME because I had so much JOY welling up in my heart that it overflowed to my face. I want that back!

CONFESSION : My prayer life is practically non-existant. I always tell people I'll pray for them but then end up just saying "Oh yeah God, and you know my friend so-and-so needs Your help today, thanks." And that's about it. I hardly ever pick up my Bible while at home. I do manage to make it to church almost every Sunday, but I'm not as involved as I should be. My spiritual life SUCKS. It's dead. Lifeless, passionless, dull. And the sad thing is, I don't even really know where to begin to get it back on track. I feel like I'm so far behind and it's such a big process that it's overwhelming and I'm having a hard time even starting! I'm not sure if I'll ever have the passion of my youth again. Is it just a youthful thing? When you don't have bills/marriage/kids/etc to worry about, is that the only time you can be truly sold-out to the Lord? Is that the only time you can truly FEEL Him in your life? Is that something that mature/older Christians don't experience? I don't want to go through this life being "good" and going to church and reading and praying but still feeling this LIFELESS.

I want the passion back. I'm searching for it. I'm on a quest. I don't know where to start and I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I know what I want. I want to FEEL His presence in my life again. I want to hear Him speak to me. I want to know Jesus Christ intimately once again. I want to feel as though this veil between us is lifted and I am back IN TUNE with Him again. This is my desire. This is my heart. ..... And so I begin .....

2 comments:

  1. Welcome back! I'm glad you included me in the invitation to share in your blog and i'm pleased to make the first comment. Our walk is a daily struggle. It is good that you realize and acknowledge your shortcomings but remember His promises are new every morning. Music has always been a close link with my spiritual walk and My Eyes are Dry is tucked in the back of my Bible. "Create in me a pure heart" is on a wooden heart on the threshold to the door of my office.
    You do not walk this path alone. Thank you for letting me walk with you from time to time. Blessings on your path and on this spiritual quest/blog.
    This is the day that the Lord has made...let us rejoice and be glad in it!

    dan

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  2. Thanks for being so transparent here, and leading the way as an example to us all. I think especially with kids, it's easy to fall into the trap of going through the motions. And God wants a true relationship with him, a passionate one. It's hard to find the time for deep prayer and bible reading when you have kids to look after, and as soon as they're asleep and you close your eyes to pray you fall asleep yourself (or is that just me?). But if we want them to grow up knowing Jesus, we have to set an example from now, it's so important.

    I'll go on this journey with you. The awesome thing is, James 4v8 says, "Come close to God, and God will come close to you." So the journey to him, thankfully, isn't a long distance one. He'll be right there with us in an instant. Then we can work on walking alongside him and delving deep into the bible.

    I was working through the bible in chronological order, but doing the old and new testaments side by side (because too much old testament can mess with your head!) but then I lost my print out so I stopped. I'm going to print another one and start again today.

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