Hello People!! I'm still alive. I know. It's been quite a long time, but I'm here now! So just a quick update on my life; I started my very first job back in October. It's been a great experience and I've met some pretty cool people! I also bought my first car, the same day I started my job. Crazy right? :) I'm 15, already have a job, my very own car, and an awesome family that supports me. Sounds like everything in my life is totally on track right?
Wrong.
I just got back from leading worship at a youth retreat. Well before I left to go to the retreat, I knew I had to put my heart in the right place. So I just grabbed my guitar and started writing a song about how awesome God is. And not to say that I didn't mean it, but it didn't fix or change the fact that I'd pretty much been ignoring God for about 2 months.
Basically, it'd be like if you and your best friend had a fight, and just didn't talk for like 2 months. Then all of the sudden they show up at your house with a song about how awesome you are, but they never actually apologize... Nothing actually gets fixed. Just covered over.
Honestly it's the same with Duct Tape. People claim that "Duct tape fixes everything". I used to totally be on board with this, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while duct tape does hold things together, does it really fix anything? If you remove the tape, the problem is still there. It's just been covered over by something that may hold it together a little bit longer.
God's forgiveness is not this way though. Hebrews 8:12 says, "And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins." When we are forgiven the slate is wiped clean and there's no residue of our sin left behind. It's not like a chalk or a white erase board, where when you wipe away the word, you can still see the remains of what used to be there. Our sins are completely forgotten, as if they never happened. But we can't expect that to happen without repentance.
So I get to the camp on Friday night, rock out our first set with the band, hear a fantastic message from the speaker and then I went home. I came back the next morning practiced our set, played our set, and listened to another great message from the speaker. I spent the rest of the day shopping with my mom, until I came back that night to practice for our next set. I'm slightly frustrated at this point, with multiple things. We get ready to lead worship, and I just kinda let it all go, trying to remind myself that I'm here for God and nothing else. And that's hard to do, since I haven't really fixed anything with God, I've just duct taped it. We play the first few songs, and then we sit down for the message. It was a really convicting message, that as I stood up to play, I just tried to shake off. Pastor Dave told us that, if we had something that was holding us back, or keeping us distant from God, we needed to confess that and give it to Him. I knew that I was holding a lot back, but I couldn't just let it go.
As I stood at my keyboard, and I don't know if it was the fact that it was freezing in the room, or if it was the Holy Spirit tugging on my heart, but I could not stop shaking. I have never in my life experienced the weight that was on my heart. I tried to sing the first song, and all that came out were tears. Somehow I got through the set, telling myself that I'd talk to God when I got back to my grandparents. As we finished the last song, Jed (the youth pastor in charge of the whole retreat) came up and asked the band to play another song. He said God was telling him that there was someone there who still needed to repent. So as we prayed one more time, I couldn't hold that in anymore. Because I knew that it was me. As the next song started, I walked over to front row of chairs, got on my knees and began crying. I prayed in my heart and individually confessed the sins that had been bubbling up inside of me for so long. And the second that I asked God to help me deal with my bitterness and my hurts, I felt this weight lift off of me. That was something that I have never before experienced in my life.
I recommitted my life to Christ that night. And although I still struggle with bitterness and anger, I know now that I'm not alone, and I don't ever have to be alone again.
-MJR
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