Tis the second Friday of June and our second blog post of the month/year and I believe it calls for applause because a win is a win, whether big or small and it needs to be celebrated lol. I haven’t written in a while but it feels amazing to be back here, as shared in last week’s The Return of the Prodigal. 16 months of silence, yep BUT who is like God our restorer.
I accepted Christ as my personal savior on 26th May 2016 and last month I celebrated 6 years of God’s faithfulness in this beautiful walk of faith. I would never take any credit for this far I have come because I am utterly NOTHING without God. I haven’t played any huge or grandeur role, I have just being a vessel that surrendered and submitted to Christ for Him to use as He pleases. Have I been the most pleasant vessel to work with? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I am so flawed, too flawed, I am broken, I am stubborn, I am strong willed and led to easily disobey; simply put I am a beautiful mess of imperfection. If I didn’t know God, I would pray for Him every day that He gets the strength to work with this girl BUT because I Know Him, I pray to Him every day thanking Him for never quitting on her.
Before I got born again, I had been really struggling to live a righteous life. I knew about God since I had heard of him all throughout my life from childhood. I loved Sunday school, I loved being and serving in church as a young girl, I loved reading and hearing the bible stories of great men, women and even children who were loved by God and whose lives sounded pretty amazing. Stories of Abraham being called by the unseen and into the unknown , Noah building an ark and the rains pouring incessantly, Moses and the burning bush (I have got questions saved up to ask him when we meet in Heaven) and not forgetting little David and his five smooth stones killing a barbaric giant. These were pretty fascinating stories to me and I grew up loving God and wanting to live a life that pleased Him. But it honestly wasn’t easy as ABC. The more I grew up, the harder it became because the “giants” kept growing and morphing into different challenges: from wanting to obey and please my parents in primary to fighting peer pressure and low self-esteem in high school and finally succumbing to the worldly pleasures afterwards.
Throughout the seasons I never stopped believing that God loved me so I kept fighting the battles and I never let go of the hope that one day there would be victory over the flesh and its desires. Looking back now it’s hilarious because I would go to church every Sunday (Yes I rarely missed church, regardless of which hole I was in the previous night) be deeply convicted and ‘give’ my life to Christ then the moment I walked out and stepped back to the norm, I would come crumbling down almost instant. Some Sundays it would be going back to break up with a boyfriend and walking out having ‘made out’ for breaking up then moving on with the relationship lol. Some other Sundays it would be getting back home after the sermon then receiving a “I am out here, come meet me” kind of calls then forgetting all the resolve and jumping back into the bandwagon of drinking and making merry. Like I said, I was a beautiful mess of imperfection.
But I never stopped believing, fighting, hoping and praying to live a life that pleased God even when it spiraled downwards and became so bad and heartbreaking, even when I made terrible decisions, one after another after another until it became a cycle of bad decisions. It always felt like living a double life, on one hand I was totally sucked into this self-centered, self-pleasing self-glorifying and self-gratifying life and on the other hand I was still desperately hoping and fighting to live a righteous life because deep down my heart there was always a strong conviction of God.
The conviction never wavered but kept getting louder and louder every day until one day His voice was the loudest amidst the chaos, the struggles, the brokenness, the lies of the enemy and the depression. It kept getting louder until finally it was only Him and I alone, He saw the broken girl, her mistakes, her terrible decisions, her cries, tears and snort, her scars and wounds. He saw her at her weakest, her lowest, and her breaking point of giving up on life AND HE LOVED HER NONETHELESS.
And for the first time in my life, I felt His pure beautiful unconditional love wash over me, I felt Him lift the burden of sin I had carried all my life alongside the baggage it brought. For the very first time in my life, that night of 26th May 2016 I was redeemed, I was accepted and made new, the dead was buried and I was resurrected with Christ. My mind and body which had hosted oh so many was sanctified into His Holy Temple and I was sealed with the mark of the Holy Spirit and free to start afresh.
If I tell you what Jesus has done for me, you will never be astonished at my never ending praises unto Him. If I tell you where I have been and what I did and what He has done for me, you will never question why am completely in love and in awe of this Savior of mine. I have stared at death with my very own eyes and I have also witnessed the mighty hand of God snatch me away from the enemy’s grasp. I have slept with the enemy in his own bed and I also know what it feels like to lay on my Savior’s bosom, to be held and hidden in His arms. What God has done for me I could never repay Him, I am truly surrendered to Him, my heart belongs to Him, my life I now live for Him because His life was given up for mine.
6 years of living for Christ and it still feels like yesterday when I finally evolved from knowing about God to truly Knowing God because all my life I had heard about Him but it took one night of surrender to encounter Jesus Christ. And am still as in love with Him as I was when we first met. I still feel am yet to fully comprehend the magnitude of His love and His presence, the magnitude of His persona because even to date, there are uncountable instances where, like the Beautiful Lover He is, He keeps me on my toes and He blows my mind. No eye has seen, nor ear heard, not human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. 1st Corinthians 2:9.
In my 16 months of silence, I confessed I had my moments of being 100% certain, assured and totally confident in my calling then the other moments where I sunk in a sea of doubt, moments of thinking “ Am I really called? Was I called? Did I hear right or did I call myself?”
Today God affirms me that YES He called me, I didn’t call myself, I simply couldn’t. All those years in the battlefield, I didn’t sustain myself, He did and I never gave up the fight because He never gave up on me.
I know am called because before I was formed in my mother’s womb, He knew me and He set me apart for the nations. Jeremiah 1:5
I know am called because while I was still a sinner, God sent Christ to die for me Romans 5:8
I know am called because those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son Jesus Christ Romans 8:29
I know am called because it is the will of God that Christ shall lose none of all those God has given to Him John 6:39
I know am called because Christ is able to keep me from stumbling and to present me before His glorious presence without fault and with great Joy Jude 1:24
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j] 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39
Dear Heavenly Father,
I thank you for reminding me that Yes I am called. I thank you that You know my needs even before I open my mouth to speak and today you have met, exceeded and surpassed my thoughts in deeds. Thank you for re-affirming me that You have a plan and purpose for me, that even in the silence and moments of doubt You will never stop whispering that I am eternally yours. May my life always be pleasing to you as I give myself as a living sacrifice. To you be the glory and honor always and in eternity.
Amen!
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