I’m Ready

For the last six years after truly knowing God, I had find myself unwittingly fighting Him more than all the years in which I only had known OF Him.

Going to church every Sunday, Bible studies and prayer meetings on Wednesdays, worship sessions on Friday nights, cell groups on Tuesday nights — I went through the motions even after truly understanding God. But it was no longer out of ignorance like it had been all these years, but now it was about fear. When you find God (IMHO), it’s one of the most beautiful things you will ever experience, but it can also be one of the most terrifying. I say this because… your life will be changed for the better. But, submission can be a frightening idea, and with submission comes change which can be the most frightening thing of all, but also the most fulfilling.

This past year, I went from being a “religious person” to one who believes that the spirit of religion had me deceived in more ways than one. It was tearing me down, destroying my most important relationship (with God), and leaving me (unknowingly) unfulfilled.

This emptiness that begun to settle deeper and deeper into my heart, had eventually gone so deep that I had nothing left in me but a desperate cry to God… “Why?” In my mind… in my heart… I truly wasn’t seeing the error of my ways. I wasn’t seeing that the spirit of religion was so far rooted in me that I was walking in a place of complacency instead of freedom.

My question didn’t get an answer right away. But, slowly my eyes had begun to open. I begun to see worship differently. Prayer differently. Faith differently. God differently. Life differently.

What occurred a few days ago in my life, was what has compelled me to start this blog. It was nothing miraculous. Nothing strange or out of this world.

It was just simply… an awakening. I saw more clearer, I heard more sharply.

Something, on May 21, 2008, as I drove home from a Wednesday night church service, made me begun to cry out to God. The words were simple… “I’ve never been more ready!” There was nothing spoken (at least not aloud) at the service to bring this statement on. Something in me… something desperate for change, desperate for revelation… cried out.

The church service wasn’t the usual few moments spent in praise, a chunk of time spent in teaching and prayer, and a few hugs and smiles as people left to go home.

Something was in the air… in the sanctuary that night. I walked in, and it was quiet. The sanctuary was only holding a small group that evening. Half were standing, half were sitting, a few down on their knees. There were no songs of worship, no lifting up of praise — the worship team stood quietly to the side of the stage. The pastor wasn’t at the pulpit, but standing quietly before the group. Quiet utterances of prayer commenced after a large amount of time was spent in complete and utter silence. There was no typical service that night. No worship or praise. No typical designated time given to teaching or prayer. It was just simply a room full of people, a strangeness in the air, an almost inept feeling of anticipation, and yet there was a peace and stillness that I had not felt in some time.

As I reached home and pulled into my drive way, I parked my truck, and for a moment I just sat there in the stillness of the night.

Something had changed… but I don’t know what?

That’s what this blog is about. I’m not the best writer, the smoothest talker, or the most passionate thinker. Simply… I want to find the answer to the question that’s plaguing me: What’s changed?

I felt this blog was an easy way to share my own personal victories and failures with you. To share my own experiences as I learn more and more about God, through my own personal walk. To share the good, the bad, and the ugly; as my ever fluctuating moral compass gives testament to I’m not the most perfect being. But nonetheless, that’s what I offer. That’s what I’m willing to share with anyone who drops by and reads. May it bless someone else, as I truly believe whatever comes of this will truly bless me.