As a leader and missionary I find myself constantly
attempting to get others involved, trying to lead them into being God chasers. America
as a whole struggles to get people committed to the body and to devoting their lives to following Christ. We are constantly searching for people who are hungry for God.
Here is something I read about a Pastor in America talking
to an Ethiopian pastor who lived in horrible poverty. He said, “Brother, we
pray for you in your poverty.” The humble Ethiopian turned and said, “No, you don’t understand. We pray for you in your prosperity.” Seeing the taken aback look on the American
Pastor’s face he continued, “We pray for you Americans because it is much
harder for you to live at the place God wants you to live in the midst of
prosperity, than it is for us in the midst of our poverty.”
I think that is such a key point. Most people you meet are
starving. They try to meet that desperate need with anything and everything. Now days we turn
to alcohol, physics, parties, medication, programs, money, possessions, status, professional psychologists,
social acceptance… the list goes on. We try to fill that emptiness inside with
all the stuff that America has to offer. We come to church to
check it off our list, to socialize, to meet the "religious" part of us, some even come to sit and be taught. But how many of us come just because we
are God chasers? We are following Him, running towards Him, we go to church
because we fully expect to meet personally with our almighty, all powerful God.
How many times do we come to church on Sundays and
completely miss the presence of God only because we didn’t really expect to
meet with Him? But maybe we don’t actually want to
meet with Him. Do we even know when He shows up? When you go to “church” on
Sunday is God going to be there in the building? If so what is He doing? What
is He saying? Who is He talking to? What if He shows up to personally talk to
you? One of the things that scares me the most is becoming so complacent that
when He does show up we either miss Him, or He finds us comfortably tipped back
in our church seat napping and when He asks us about the things He has sent us
to do we will not have an answer because the list is crumpled up in the garbage
can. I believe that no matter how hard we pray or ask God to work, He will not
pour out His Spirit on those who do not hunger for Him.
Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just like the idea of Him?
Do we just like the things He has to offer? Or do we want Him to completely ruin
us for the world? Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just want to know about
Him? What will it take for us to be overwhelmed by His presence? For us to fall
on our knees and bow our faces in reverence to our almighty God? What will it
take for us to break out of our self-induced, self-absorbed comas and start
really living for the One whose blood spilled out upon Calvary’s Hill?
A couple months ago I was once again sitting at the table
having a conversation with my dad when he said something that really struck
me. “The one thing that comforts me is
knowing that whatever God tells you to do, you will do because you don’t know
how to stop following God.”
He is right. Rewind about 9 years. It was a spring day, I
was alone, terrified, depressed, and hopeless. That’s when I met Jesus. He was
there all along, I can see Him when I look back on my younger years but I’d
never let Him in. That day I realized that only He could fill the starving part of
my soul. At the time I was still living with my birth family and I had no clue
what to do about this whole “following God” thing or what a real relationship
with Him was like. In fact it was a few years after that when I got to meet my
adoptive dad that I really started learning about who Jesus is and who we are
in Him. I suddenly found that everything I had been taught about God needed to
be rearranged and redefined.
Somewhere during all the long talks and late
nights a fire was lit inside my soul, one that could not be quenched. During
the short course of my lifetime I have been through many struggles. Many of the
things that happened, the things I had to go through were not easy to overcome.
Sometimes I still struggle with them. It’s not easy to make the decision to
choose God over your family, to forgive the man who tried to rape you, forget
all the voices telling you that you aren’t worth it, to find love in your heart
for somebody after years of being abused, it’s not easy to miss out on your
sisters growing up, or overcome depression, anxiety and self-destructive
habits. It’s the hardest thing in the world to break addictions and the chains
that Satan so tightly bound you with. But here’s the good part. We can choose
to let those struggles make us bitter against God or we can choose to believe
Romans 5:1-5
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained
access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of
the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces
hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Has it been easy? No way. Is it always easy now? Nope. Is it
worth it? Without doubt. Many people often ask me if I could go back and
restart would I? They want to know what I’d change. I struggle to answer
that sometimes but in the end it always comes down to the fact that I wouldn’t
change a thing. Because if I took out the tragic, the trials, the struggles,
the dark parts… if I took that out... my faith wouldn’t be as deep as it is, the
fire wouldn’t be quite so consuming and I wouldn’t know Jesus’s love like I do
now.
I don’t wish my life from here on
out to be easy either, because if my life runs smoothly with no struggles, no parts
that make me question what God is doing that make me drive deeper into His
Word, I’ll become complacent. That is my biggest fear. I never want to become
lukewarm, I never want to lose passion, I never want to forget how great God’s
mercy and grace are over me. So I welcome the struggles, the trials that are
sure to come because they will require me to take my faith to a deeper level,
to run to my Father’s open arms and trust Him with my life.
And in the end… when I have done all that I was commanded, I
say, “I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty.” *Luke 17-10
~KrissElise
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