For most of my life I’ve wondered if God really did indeed keep his promises… I’d heard a thousand sermons. I’d read the entire Bible, but still, I felt that somehow I was being overlooked. Where are you God? It was a question I asked often.
For most of my life I’ve been consumed with myself. I spent hours thinking about me, wallowing ins self-pity and often self-loathing. Insecurity, shame, low self-esteem – these were adjectives that were graffitied on the walls of my life.
But last year I joined a community group and God brought a few other people into my life and I was shown so much love and grace through them that my blinders were removed. God was there all along. He was carefully guiding my steps, growing me, shaping me according to his will and to make me ready for his purposes. For years the very things that I thought were keeping me apart from God were the very things that actually made me see how much he really loves me.
It’s easy as Christians to think that the church and people and even God are going to let you down. It’s easy to find yourself stuck and despairing, but God is always there even when no one else is around. Those lonely moments are quiet opportunities to cry out to him, to listen, to pray, and to wait. Psalm 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord, He inclined and heard my cry.” I know there is truth in that verse.
This year I have been consumed by the love of God so much so that my heart that was once hardened to the truth – and to the Love of God – has now exploded. I have been shattered by the outpouring of love and grace that has been shown to me by others and by God. I have a new hunger and thirst for righteousness that I never had before and like Paul I boast in my weakness, because it is in my weakness that God is made strong.
For most of my life I was consumed by shame and fear, but now that is all gone. I am consumed by the love of Christ and I pray that you have the opportunity to experience that in your life.