Subtitle: Thinking about my personal testimony
It’s all a process.
Life is a process.
I’m a work in progress, and it’s not over.
I am becoming more aware and (by God’s grace) more intentional each day about getting to know God and spending time with Him. He is my reward, the lifter of my head, and the one that holds it all together. My love relationship with God is the foundation of all that is good in my life, and the true measure of any success I may stumble upon.
Without him, I go back-and-forth constantly with my thoughts. I quickly become indecisive and easily overwhelm myself with a myriad of decisions day in and day out. These decisions ultimately leave me paralyzed in fear and discouragement because I feel like I don’t know anything, I don’t know what to do, and I have no direction. And that’s when feelings of hopeless and loneliness tag team in the fight. It’s like my mind gets cloudy and all I want to do is sleep because it’s the only way to stop the barrage of overwhelming thoughts.
But when I spend time with God every day, I gain clarity. I begin to shift my focus and not be overwhelmed with the bigger picture of life and all of the things that are out of my control. I am then often able to discern specific next steps for my day – even if it’s just spending time with him, or following up on an idea or project, even reaching out to someone to see how they’re doing – He leads me and guides me.
I have to admit that I don’t always get it right.
When things are busy and I’ve got a lot on my plate, weeks can go by without my stopping to spend time with God. And the first thing to suffer when I get busy is my relationships. I don’t stop to make that phone call, or to send the text. I enter into survival mode.
While in survival mode, I still have my gospel and worship jams going in the background as the soundtrack to my overwhelming life, and I’ll often read the daily verse that pops up on my phone, but over time these placeholders to really spending time with God begin to fail at the task of withstanding my anxiety and the pressures of life. I’ll eventually find myself in a rut of feeling overwhelmed with circumstances and things that are happening around me – it can feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Eventually, it breaks me down and I have to go back to God and say, “OK, God I’m sorry I got off track. Let’s just spend some time together, thanks for being there. What are you up to these days? Where have you been moving? Oh, oh yeah, hmmm, how can I get to where you are? Please help me with this, this and this so that I can move with you instead of going this way I’ve been going. And I keep having this thought, so can you help with that too?”
I’ve found He’s always faithful to come through and meet me where I am. He gives fresh insight and ideas, He brings people in my life at the perfect time, and even lets me be a support in other people’s lives at the perfect time when they need it.
Trusting in God will never grow old (even though I get older with each trip around the sun). It’s a beautiful relationship, and one that I look forward to growing deeper in for the rest of my life.
I’m thankful for the years that I’ve had of walking with him even though they have not been perfect, I know that all things are working together for good.
God is doing something beautiful in me, and doing something beautiful through me and I can trust that as long as I’m walking with Him that I am still a work in progress – and the same goes for you. We don’t have to feel discouraged when I fail or miss the mark, because it’s not over!