For the first twenty-eight years of my life I was a clueless Christian. Baptized Catholic, then later raised Episcopalian, my perception of Christianity was going to church, singing in the choir, attending the women's group, being kind to my neighbor, and wearing a cross around my neck. Year after year I went to church oblivious of the fact that God wanted my life, not just my actions. I had learned how to perform the outward acts of Christianity. Unfortunately, this left me as a shallow person, void of the foundational relationship with God that I needed to be spiritually successful. I thought faith was all about me: my salvation and my guarantee to heaven. I had the winning ticket to heaven: Jesus, and if I just did the right thing, I would stay on His good side and control my final destination.
Now, I know that I am not alone in this perception. I have met too many other Christians who have fallen into this deception. Usually, they come to me upset because things are not going the way they think they should according to their life plan. They feel like they are failing because everything is not going perfectly. They are not satisfied with life and not happy with themselves. This was where I was when God invaded my life and changed my course forever.
Lack of the knowledge of the love of God sent me in a direction far from God's will. For the most part of my early adult years, I wandered in a spiritual wasteland of self-seeking satisfaction in life. Isn't that what we are taught? Make your own way. Dress for success. Lead to succeed. The list of slogans for success go on and on. Performing is indoctrinated into our innermost being from the day we are born. So, when my "performance" was failing, I found myself bewildered by life's circumstances. I was out of ideas. Everything I tried to do failed. In desperation, I decided to leave the wasteland of self-indulgence and go back to church. Surely, God could do a better job than me, was my thought!
By the time I turned my life to Jesus, I was twenty-eight and suicidal. My health was out of control. I had done so much methamphetamine that I had ruined my immune system. I couldn't breathe. I became allergic to everything - grass, dust, medicines, even air bothered me. I would lie on my bed in my middle-class suburbia home and beg God to kill me. I would have thoughts driving home from work to drive off the overpass onto the interstate below just to end it all. I was miserable. My marriage of one year was a disaster. I dropped out of college where I was on scholarship for an Engineering degree. I was having a hard time doing my job of eight years. Everything I worked for was falling apart.
I was taught that if you kill yourself you will go to hell, so suicide wasn't an option. God would have to kill me. That was the answer. God quickly acted upon my prayer. In my quest to find an answer, He began to kill me - not physically, but He began to tear apart my misconceptions of life in general. At my place of desperation, He met me and started His excellent work of killing my false perceptions of Christianity and performance. He had me right where He wanted me. It was at this point of surrender that I realized that my life was not my own, but bought and paid for through God's only Son, Jesus.
If I was truly going to let God handle things, my agenda must go. My dreams must go. It was time to see what God could do, and I learned quickly that His ways are much higher than mine. In Isaiah 55:6-7 it says:
Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
My life changed dramatically when I surrendered twelve years ago. God's glorious pardon changed my life forever and set me on the path I am on today. I never imagined that I would be a minister of the Gospel when I was growing up. Now, I can't imagine my life any other way. In one day everything changed.
Perhaps today you are struggling with your walk with God. Maybe, it's not what it used to be. Maybe you've never known Him as more than a big judge in the sky waiting to condemn you for what you've done wrong. Maybe you forgot where you came from. Whatever your case, I encourage you to take time today to seek Him and call upon Him. It is at the point of surrender that things change. It is the submitted life that God uses. Isaiah 55 goes on to say in verses 8 and 9:
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. (NKJV)
Today, seek the higher way. The death of your agenda and false perceptions will do you some good!
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Lord, forgive me for trying to make my own way. Today I surrender my plans to you and lay them at Your feet. Everything is Yours, God - my family, finances, ministry, health, and dreams. Evaluate me Lord and kill the perceptions and agendas that do not line up with Your thoughts and ways. I choose to seek You and call upon You and forsake my former ways. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.
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