Only Him

       Last year, in the month of December 2011, my parents had decided to not let me go to Faithwalkers at the end of the year. Faithwalkers is about a three day conference in North Carolina where I attended the year before that, in 2010. On my way back home that year, I was in awe with everything that God had shown me and was really pumped up to put to practice everything that I had learned! It was definitely an edifying and fruitful time which was why I wanted to go again, but God definitely had something much more important that He needed to teach me before I continued on my walk with Him.

             

A couple of months before, I had been in constant prayer, asking the Lord to provide the money and everything else that I needed to go on this trip so that I would be able to start my year out as pumped up as I was the year before. Little by little I had collected the money(which was the hardest thing to get, or so I thought) and was on my way to finding a ride until my parents stopped me right on my tracks and told me what I thought was the most unexpected, “no.” I could not believe they had said no when they had let me go last year, especially when in my eyes they did not have a valid excuse of not letting me go. Most importantly, I became frustrated towards God for not answering my prayer and not granting me my heart’s desire (selfish eh?) and confused as to why He didn’t let me go when He knew how fruitful it had been last year for me! 

Then my parents had decided to go to Disney instead for New Year’s weekend and I tried with everything that I had to have a pleasant time in which I partially succeeded in. The entire time I was questioning God (psh, who am I right?) as to why I was there and had not gone to FW. When we had come back, I felt like I started my year out on the wrong foot and I was subconsciously blaming it on God. Besides all of this, I still wanted to read and study the entire New Testament which was one of my goals for the New Year and as I did, by the end of the first week, God had brought my focus on Paul the apostle. Even though I had read the New Testament before, I had never studied it and lingered on each apostle’s life. But Paul caught my attention this time as He began to point out all that Paul did and was because of Him.

             How he was always being persecuted, tortured, and thrown into prison over and over again, but he never lost hope. Never stopped LOVING God.  Always persevered and counted everything as lost if it weren't for His gain. His constant devotion, surrender, and passion for God began to make me long all the much more for what I was already longing for. That life of complete surrender to my Savior. There was something missing though, something that was constantly making that longing in my heart impossible to quench. As much as I tried to surrender and crucify the flesh (Galatians 5:24-25) to live a life of pure devotion for God for His glory and Kingdom, I always fell short. There was something in my way that I was blind to.

              As I was meditating on Paul's life I felt a gentle tug from the Spirit in my heart. I wrote it down in my journal and wanted to share it with y'all:

" See his passion? It did not come from conferences, concerts, youth group, retreats, and meetings that he attended. It came from knowing me (Deuteronomy 6:5). He didn't have all of these things to motivate him or encourage him. No. Yet he gave up his life, he "took his cross", left everything  behind, and "followed Me."(Matthew 16:24-25; Matthew 8:20)  The time he spent with Me, My love for him, and I were  his inspiration and where his passion ignited. Being a living sacrifice as his spiritual worship (Romans 12:1) for Me and devoting himself to advance my Kingdom. That is how his passion and love for Me grew. "

             That completely blew me away! Right there and then the Lord made me realize the problem that was stopping me from going any deeper in my walk with God. It was that I had  started to have this habit of relating to God through all these different sources! Christian books, christian music, christian friends, and sermons! These things are not bad at all but I had counted on them to make me feel close to God, instead of seeking Him for myself. Instead of looking to Him to make me fall all the much more in love with Him.

             The problem was that I was looking for inspiration from God through all of those other things than getting my inspiration from Him alone. I had stopped nurturing my relationship with Christ (Just Him and I) by completely being consumed by all these other things and trying to quench that longing with them.  Again, all of these things are amazing but they aren't where you should get the motivation to keep fighting the good fight and running this race. Ever since the Lord taught me this and opened my eyes to the bad habit I was accumulating, I began to seek Him with way more belligerence. I made sure I persevered on being consistent with my devotionals, learning how and what it means to pray without ceasing, and meditating upon His word. Making sure I had those alone and intimate times with God throughout my day, singing praises or just stopping whatever I am doing to give thanks to Him!

              Its always the little things that give things more meaning. These little things are simple but hard to be consistent with, that is why we must rely on His grace. The only thing that kept me being consistent was His grace and strength and it continues to be done only by Him. God is so faithful and even more when we have willing hearts. Now, every day I need more of Him, I have experienced and understand what David says in Psalm 42: 1-2: 

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

              I know how it feels when your soul thirsts, especially when I miss my morning devotionals and the only thing I can think about all day is " When shall I come and appear before God?"

So my brothers and sisters in Christ, is there anything in your life that you are depending on to make you pumped up for this life of surrender other than God himself? 

Are there any distractions? Are you depending on Christian books, concerts, youth group, or the worship band on Sunday meeting to motivate you to continue living a life of complete surrender to the Lord? 

Or are you letting God and Him alone with all His majesty and awe-stricken beauty  be where you withdraw that passion and fire from? That love that moves you to follow His every command and guidance? That leads you to build your existence around Him? and give it all away?

Thank you for reading a bit of what God has shown me this year :) Its been amazing so far and I hope to continue to write to you all to continue to encourage you to seek His face always!