My Purpose

When it comes to conversations about spiritual things, we tend to be a little reserved or guarded. Like talking to a salesman, we are always ready for that moment when we are presented with something that another person wants us to believe and agree with, that we currently do not agree with at all. There is a fear of conflict and confrontation. There is also a fear that we will hear something that might make sense to us, but at the same time contradicts what we believe. We don’t like when our core beliefs are challenged.

My purpose in my reflection messages is to just share my thoughts and experiences and what I have learned in my life, to pass this on to someone in hope that someone may benefit in some way from it. I simply want to share what has happened to me to inspire someone who feels that they are beyond hope with God and to show that God can indeed change anyone. My goal is to try and convey my story in hopes that there is someone out there like me that will hear this and have hope that they too can change. These are my observations after thirty years of trying to follow Christ. What I found after thirty years is not something new, it is not something that will surprise you. I have no secret way to do anything, nor anything that is unique or profound. All I have is the events that have happened in my life, that God used to cause me to go from being a self-centered immature and angry person, to slowly becoming someone who is aware of who they are and is starting to change. I believed in God all my life, and I felt that I never doubted God’s existence. The problem was that I didn’t want to ever be subject to anyone and I didn’t realize how much that would effect my spiritual growth. I prayed to have God forgive me and take away my sins in June of 1995. I felt this incredible feeling of relief and release come out of me. I was so happy and so grateful and so peaceful instantly. But it would only last for a few months. I would spend the next 30 years slowly failing more and more at everything. It would become thirty years of going further away instead of closer. Becoming apathetic instead of caring. Thirty years of reading and not really putting anything I am learning from the bible into practice. I was becoming more critical and arrogant instead of having mercy and being humble. Becoming cold hearted, becoming angry, becoming self-absorbed and bitter. I was generally discontented, always anxious and feeling that I was not where I should be in life. What happened to me in that thirty years? How could the goal of becoming loving and kind end up becoming the opposite? Why did hearing 30 years of preaching not really affect me? Why did all of that bible study and prayer not really change me with some kind of lasting change? I would come to find that what happened to me is what has happened historically since the beginning of God calling his people to him. What I would come to find is that what I thought was worst thing that happened to me, would be the best thing that happened to me. The bible verse “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” would have a new meaning in my life. I would live to see Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” come true.