Alive Again to God

Yesterday my husband and I went to a gathering of believers here in town. I’ve never been to this gathering before. It was like a beehive when we arrived. After walking around for a short while we figured out where the adults were supposed to be. After everything was said and done, I felt like I had witnessed a motivational talk on how to act as a Christian.

This really was no different than all the other gatherings we’ve visited in the past year. The liturgy was consistent. The order goes something like this: 1) pray for God to come and be a part of the service; 2) stand; 3) sing; 4) sit; 5) give your money to God (so the bills that make the building work can be paid); 6) listen to a motivational talk which tells you how to behave as a Christian; 7) stand; 8) pray in closing and ask God to grow the message into our hearts; 9) leave the building and find your car.

For years I went through this routine believing that I was doing God’s will. Yet I could never be sure because the system I submitted myself to was continually between God and me. It became a substitute to a personal, living relationship with my Father. I didn’t know it at the time. If I had known it, my life may have taken a different turn than the one it did. Thus after many years of following this pattern, my first love grew cold. Disconnected from God, I remember thinking a number of times in recent years before the crisis, “Is this all there is to serving God?”.

After hearing a message like we heard yesterday, in previous years, I would have felt guilty for thinking that I couldn’t possibly fulfill what the preacher was saying, no matter what the subject matter. I would try. At least for a while. Eventually I would give up and relent to unbelief. Unbelief is so destructive. It robs of all that Father has for us to be and do, in that order.

Now I’m beginning to see what went wrong. My trying is not what God wants. He wants me to rest. Abiding in Him must be the first thing. Loving Him and having a consciousness of Him inside me is what’s different now. I truly feel alive in Him again, as from the dead. Only God knows what's ahead for us.