“Thy Word is
a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Psalm
119:105
I was born
again Wednesday, August 7th, 2002 at approximately 2:00 o’clock in
the afternoon.
My husband
had taken our girls to the movies to see the sequel to Spy Kids which had just
been released that day too, while I stayed home minding other household
business.
I remember
when I was 16 years old, coming home from school to my mother telling me that
my favorite actress, Natalie Wood had died. I was so sad. I thought she was so
pretty and talented and young! For some weird reason I told my mom that day
that I thought I too would die young. I specifically told her I would die when
I was 36. I don’t know why those words came out of my mouth, but I just had a
feeling that would be the case. She was so upset with me when I said that.
That weird
‘prediction’ would stay with me throughout my 20s and 30s. I would think about
it every now and then and wonder why I would think such thing. Then I turned 35
and felt the clock beginning to tick, for reasons other than childbearing! The
closer I got to 36 the more anxious I would become! Then I turned 36 and I
could not sleep until way past midnight! Right after the clock struck twelve I
literally held my breath and thought ‘ok…I’m still here.’ I went to bed and the next day I woke up happy
as can be, thinking ‘Thank God! It was a false alarm! I made it!’
But then I
spent my entire 36th year of life with this constant thought on my
mind of what would become of me when I died. Every morning on my way to take
the girls to school, we had to cross a bridge, and every morning I would get
stuck in traffic right over the water. And every single morning I would have
the same thought, ‘what if something happens right now and my car plunges to
the bottom of that river….where am I going to end up?’ That was my [annoying]
thought day in and day out for a good part of a year.
I believed
in God, I went to church, I read the bible, I prayed, and yet none of those
things ever made me feel secured. There was still a great doubt of where
exactly I would spend my eternity. I was frustrated and I was scared. I
couldn’t understand why I had such void.
Growing up
my life was a mixture of rituals and idolatry. Saturday’s we would go to my
mom’s house to visit her family, where we would witness her mother and sisters
gathering at their personal altar hidden in a room, full of images that even
the catholic church wouldn’t recognize, or visiting the local tarot card reader
to find out what the future would bring. Then Sunday morning we would go to the
cathedral to hear the mass given by the priests. Wednesdays was rosary day and
if it was the first of the month that meant it was the children’s turn to
recite the prayers in front of the images.
I actually
hated doing all of that. I hated being in a room full of creepy images, I hated
standing in front of statutes repeating ‘prayers’, I hated being around the
psychics. And is not like I was a teenager suffering from the usual puberty
related rebellion. No, I was younger than nine years old and already knew there
was something terribly wrong with what I was doing.
“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusts in them.” Psalm 115:4-8
I was a spiritually hungry soul at a very early age, and even though I did not understand many things, deep down I knew that the hunger and the thirst I suffered from would not be filled by any of the elements I had been exposed to at that time.
It would be years, many years, before I would finally recognize and accept Jesus as my savior and surrender my life to Him. See, it didn’t matter where I went to church, or how often, whether or not I read the bible (because at the time I really didn’t understand it either) or if I prayed, since half the time I wasn’t even praying to God. It mattered that I did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Until that day I lived in a tug of war between the flesh and the spirit.
God is not interested in religion….
God is interested in a relationship!
And God wouldn’t give up on me.
One day I had a dream I was sitting on the steps of my old elementary school, but instead of the usual setting of parking lots and playgrounds it was an ocean. Its waters were raging back and forth and a storm was in the sky. Then it stopped. Everything became calmed. And then I heard a voice saying to me ‘you have to put your life in order’
I’ll never forget that dream. It was as if one of my parents was lovingly chastising me and gently encouraging me to get my act together!
But every child needs correction more than once, and one dream wasn’t enough to make me want to quit my unrighteousness. Sometimes it takes life taking us in a good, out of control, downward spiral before we can finally make the effort to look up! I was drowning, and didn’t know how to swim in such deep waters. I needed a life guard.
“Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into
deep waters, where the floods overflow me.”
Psalm
69:1,2
And
just as I was beginning to give up, considering how many different ways I could
fake it till I made it, frantically looking for help and for answers in all the
wrong places, just then, God reached out to the depths of my soul, and rescued
me.“And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:11,12
Our lives are full of strong winds, earthquakes and fires we call influences. Good ones, bad ones, positive, negative, destructive, edifying. From the moment we come in unto this world there are voices calling out to us. We spend our lives listening and absorbing and making decisions based on what we hear. We are asked to do things, told to do things, encouraged to do things, tempt to do things. We listen, we follow, we act and react, we imitate and repeat, eventually creating the habits that will shape us and mold us into who we think we are supposed to be. And we call it our life, thinking it is up to us to figure it out.
But life is not a mystery. Neither is our purpose in life.
In this world everything comes with instructions, including humans!
Contrary to popular believe, life does come with an instruction manual! And it is called The Bible! The Word of God. You know, the One with that ‘still small voice’. The One who says:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.”
REVELATION 3:20
God didn’t just randomly ‘knit us in our mother’s womb’ one day hoping we would figure ourselves out as we grew up. On the contrary, God knew us before the world was even created! Even then He knew who we would be, what we would look like, who we would become, what choices we would make. Including whether or not we would choose Him.
Yes, He knows us. He knows our frame, that we are dust. (Psalm 103:14)
Therefore He gave us His Word and His commandments, so that we may have direction for our lives!
In the book of Leviticus, God explicitly told the people of Israel which behavior would bring them a blessing and which one a curse. In the New Testament Jesus explicitly told the woman who was about to be stoned for her immoral behavior, to ‘go and sin no more.’
If we want to know what is acceptable in our society, we look to the world. But if we want to know what is acceptable to God, we need to look at what is written in the bible.
Now more than ever we need to turn to that only source of good morality. The only scale that can accurately measure the weight of righteousness against worldly ungodliness.
The bible is my compass and my center. It is the only place where I can actually ‘find myself.’ The bible is my dictionary, my thesaurus. The only place where I can find the answers to all of my dilemmas. It nourishes me, leads me, guide me, strengthens me and straightens me when I fall out of place.
I am not perfect, I’m definitely not good, I fall short of the glory of God every.single.day! And I know that even my very best efforts are at best nothing more than filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6) I don’t deserve the grace I have been given and much like Job and King David I think to myself,
‘what am ** I ** that You are mindful of me!
Psalm
8:4
To
answer the question posted recently of ‘why the bible is my source of morality
and a useful guide for my life’, I can tell you all this; if it weren’t for it
I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have a reason for living because I wouldn’t know
my purpose. I wouldn’t know what is expected of me or how to achieve it.
Without the bible I wouldn’t have awareness of sin. See, in the bible God gives
His law, and by the law is the knowledge of sin, (Romans 3:20), else we wouldn’t
know which ones of our actions were wrong. We wouldn’t know consequences or correction.
We would just go through life living recklessly and without hope.Without the bible we…I…wouldn’t know forgiveness. Without it I wouldn’t be aware of the fact that even when I sin there’s hope for me, because He Is faithful! (1 John 1:9)
Without the bible I wouldn’t know that there is nothing I can do to cleanse myself, forgive myself or save myself, and that the only thing I need to receive any of that is simply to believe!
“For God so loved the world, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM should not perish but have everlasting life!” John 3:16
The bible is definitely a useful guide for my life, and I hope it will be for yours as well! Read it and listen for the voice of truth!
By the way...
I
was born again August 7th, 2002, a little over two weeks shy of my
37th birthday J It turns out I did die at 36 after all! J And got the best present
ever! I got the gift of life...Eternal life! J
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