A Life With Christ

A lot has happened in my life in the past year. There have been bad moments as well as good moments. But through each and every moment I can say that God proved Himself amazing in my life.

I came to realize this when I read one of Jon Foreman's (Switchfoot's frontman) blogs. He mentioned Romans 8 on the blog. I probably had already read that chapter sometime in my life but I decided to take a look at it again. As I read it, I started to realize that all I had experienced with God in the past year was all true. And it has been true for a long time, and Paul confirmed it.

In the past year my beliefs changed and I started asking a lot of questions. I started to think outside the box. I realized that Christianity today lacks Christian spirituality. That a lot of Christians spend their time telling people what they shouldn't do, and focus on their good works. It makes me wonder, if we have such an awesome God, then why not get and experience as much of Him as possible? Why do people that have grown up in a Christian home come to a point in their life where they see that it is all a routine? Why do so many Christians give up? I went throuhg a similar phase where I thought going to church was boring, that praying was boring and my spiritual life was just dead. I scared myself and asked God to revive me. Little did I know what He had in store for me.

I started asking questions and took these matters into account and I asked God for His help. I wanted Him to help me figure out the answer to these questions without any outside influence. Just me and Him. It was quite a journey. A series of unfortunate events occurred in my life and God used each and every one of those events to bring me closer to Him. As I drew closer I experience His love, I experienced the real sensation of what it feels like to walk with God. In the silence of my room late at night, I could feel God there, sitting beside my bed. As I cry and cry about the situation He comforts me. Instead of sending His angels to guard me, He Himself came down and comforted me and called me His child.

This didn't stop there. Surprisingly I started feeling Him everywhere. As if He were standing there right in front of me. I desired more of Him, and my love for Him grew and grew. There were times that I drew away from Him but He would still be waiting there for me. He would tell me things that nobody else could know, just our little secrets and we shared a lovely relationship.

The love that I did not get from my father, the lessons that my mom didn't have time to teach me, all of these things God did for me. I started to see the world in a new light. Everything carried beauty inside. Even pain. Even the pain that I was going through, trying to fight suicidal thoughts. I saw beauty in it because I let go of the control that I was trying to put into my life and surrendered to him. It was hard because I couldn't see past the darkness, I felt wobbly and unsure. But God always took care of me. Sometimes I thought to myself wether I was making it up, and I doubted sometimes. But He was always there.

When I read Romans 8, I just cried. I have to admit that my devotional times do not comprise of mostly Bible reading. I spend most of my time either praying or writing in my journal. I pray because I'm talking to God and I tell him about my day. I write in my journal so I can sort out my feelings and be able to balance my emotions that are originally unbalanced and a confused mess. Through the journal I am able to analyze how I really feel (I'm not able to do that with clarity instantly due to some emotional problems) and I talk to God about how I feel. But the shortest time is spent reading the Bible. I don't know if that is bad or not but it works well for me. So I haven't really done much extensive Bible reading on my devotions except for the fact that I'm reading some OT books and read some psalms of praise every now and then. That is why I was so amazed at Romans 8. I experienced it, then it was confirmed. All my doubts of "could this be true" vanished. It really was God. I'll share some of my favorite parts of the chapter. The version is The Message so I'm not going to put the verses.

The law ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.
This is kind of like the questions I asked. Why do so many Christians end up focusing on what should be done and forget about the intimacy that we can share with God?

Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them - living and breathing God.
When I let go of the control that I had in my life (not trying to do good works to impress my mom or the pastor, trying to decided my fate of wether I should die right now or not) I let God take action. And when I did that, He showed Himself and I felt His presence everywhere.

Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end: attention to God leads us out into the open into a spacious free life.
When we hold on to the control in our lives we are really thinking about ourselves. About what makes US feel comfortable. We want to know that we are exactly in the right path with God an we obsess with it in such a way that we end up forgetting to just rest and let God transform us. We can't do good works forever without a transformation of our hearts. Because sooner or later we tire and end up leaving God because we get bored. But if we continually renew our minds and let God change us and do the work through us then we find ourselves feeling free! At first it is a very queasy and different feeling. It actually feels the opposite of freedom. This happens because we WANT control but we know its not good for us so we hand it over to God, but then again we want it so bad but refrain from taking over because we know its not good. So its a constant inner battle, but after the beginning stages we experience God's love and a feeling of peace and freedom.

you yourself experience life in God's terms.
not in our own terms.

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God witha child like "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches, our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is and we know who we are. Father and children.
Soon enough we experience a great desire to do whatever God wants us to do. We don't have to force ourselves to think so or to want so, we naturally desire God's love and God's will in our lives. It comes with the transformation. And then we truly truly feel like God's chidlren. We feel like God's children, God's friend, God's comrad, God's princess. It depens on how our lives have been and how we view God, but the important thing is that we feel like we matter to Him. We don't just know it in our heads, we feel it.

If we go through hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
While I was going through my hard times God always promised me a bright future. He always promised me joy. This confirms it! If we go through the hard times with God there will be good times! And we can go through those good times with Him.
But sometimes the wait for those good times is tough:

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordles sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good!
Through those hard moments God is always there beside us. And sometimes we don't know what to pray for. During the times that I had no words to express how much pain I was going throuhg or during the times where I didn't even know what I wanted, what would make me happy, or what would get me out of this, I would just sit back and sink into His presence and let my heart speak for itself. God knows me better than I know myself. And He uses that information to help me. That is what I call a true friend. So everything that happens in our life is for a good purpose.

Finally, I know I can ask God for anything because He is a loving Father and I don't have to worry about my needs because he is always there ready to fullfill my needs.
Is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us?

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing - nothing living or dead, or angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable - absolute nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
This makes it even better! It doesn't have to end. I keep wondering to myself, "I feel like I've gotten so so so close to God that I can't see any other way to get any closer!" I know that nothing can separate me from God's love. No matter how many mistakes I make, no matter how many times I try to take control of my life once again, I know God is always there to love me. He always gives me a second chance. It's so overwhelming!

The good thing is that I'm not saying these things to preach. I'm sharing this because it's what I have experienced. So many have said the same as I have but haven't experieneced it. What is Christianity without spirituality? What is Christianity without a deep and intimate relationship with the Creator the Universe?