If your spirit can mature past your physical age, then that could explain why I felt so much older than my actual age growing up. It also could explain why I feel a little younger than how I thought I'd feel at 33. I remember having enough faith that if I needed to, I could have probably moved a literal mountain, because I know it was because of my faith that mountains were moved. Never will I forget a lady that I went to church with who would tell me almost everytime I saw her, how it was me laying my hands on her and praying, that God healed her. I had to have been around 9 years old. Eventually they left the church, or we left, I don't remember for sure. What I do remember now is that sometime after I didn't see her anymore, I started thinking that she just told me that to make me feel good. I realize now, she told me the truth and she kept telling me to encourage me, which it did as long as she was there.
Right now I'm at a very, I wouldn't say confusing time, I'm just at a very foggy time of my life. In the back of my mind I hear my mother saying to get on my knees and pray until I get an answer, but my heart doesn't tell me that's the answer. My answer is to keep doing what I'm led to do and I'll keep getting my answer. I have to admit that it's very hard to not be scared, especially being someone that always thinks well in advance before I speak. The scripture that says "don't pre-meditate what you say, that is how they will know it's the Holy Spirit" keeps coming to my mind when I start to want to play out the different scenarios of what might happen so I can be prepared with something else to say.
Years ago I wanted to learn to feel comfortable being more outgoing. I was almost painfully shy. Maybe I was painfully shy because it was painful sometimes having to drag it out of myself to speak or to sing. Someone from our church was involved with music and had offered to take me and bring me back for a church function that was in another city. It was someone that I really admired and looked up to at about the same time in my life that I was talking about earlier in this post, around 9 years old. I can't remember if it was on the way there or on the way back I wanted to be able to say something, anything so bad and I saw my chance when one of the signs we were passing was spelled like his name, only his name was spelled with a capital M, only when I said it, it came out, "Look, it's just like your name only not with a capital H". I remember pushing my back hard against the back of the seat and wanting to disappear. Now it's funny to me that I felt the way I did. In learning how to be outgoing I also learned that sometimes it's better to go ahead and laugh, because most of the time I'm only going to laugh about it later anyway.
Several times now, I've thought about getting the book Pilgrim's Progress and reading it again, but now it seems that I was just suppose to be able to envision a picture in my head, like what I envisioned when I first read Pilgrim's Progress when I was 10 or 11. The picture I see in my mind doesn't have anything to do with the story at all. It was a good book, and I still want to read it again, but not for the same reasons now. The picture I see has a person traveling down a path, with several different paths running beside it. Each path has it's own obstacles and turns, but they all lead to the same place.
I guess because of the way I grew up or am still growing, it's difficult for me to "choose" what religion I want to be. It's hard for me to understand why Christians can't just call themselves Christians instead of Baptists or Methodists, or whatever. I think the Pastor that I told I wanted to join his church, but I didn't want to join understands. I'm very blessed that God gives people patience with me who are connected to me by this blog or in my life somehow.
In the conversation I had with the Pastor, I told him that I didn't want to be a Baptist. His answer was that he didn't call himself a Baptist, man called him a Baptist because of the methods that they use. They happen to use the Baptist method and that's why they're called Baptists. It makes me feel a little better about being a Baptist, but I still don't want to think of myself as a Baptist. So I envisioned that religions are like paths. The path you choose to travel has it's own methods by which to keep moving forward down the path. Or the path may not be religion at all, maybe it's just our own personal paths and sometimes we fall off our own and end up on someone else's. It looks like we're all headed the same way. We believe that through Jesus is the only way to heaven. We must confess our sins and believe that He is the Son of God who was raised from the dead and sent by God to forgive us of our sins.
I want God to set his church on fire (not literally) and I'm hoping God has someone else in mind to do it. Now more than ever we should be warning, encouraging and witnessing to everyone we care about and even those we don't care about, but should. I believe that God does work in mysterious ways beyond my comprehension. He works in ways that don't make sense to me and He sounds like what we tell our own children, "don't ask me why, just do it".
Right now I'm at a very, I wouldn't say confusing time, I'm just at a very foggy time of my life. In the back of my mind I hear my mother saying to get on my knees and pray until I get an answer, but my heart doesn't tell me that's the answer. My answer is to keep doing what I'm led to do and I'll keep getting my answer. I have to admit that it's very hard to not be scared, especially being someone that always thinks well in advance before I speak. The scripture that says "don't pre-meditate what you say, that is how they will know it's the Holy Spirit" keeps coming to my mind when I start to want to play out the different scenarios of what might happen so I can be prepared with something else to say.
Years ago I wanted to learn to feel comfortable being more outgoing. I was almost painfully shy. Maybe I was painfully shy because it was painful sometimes having to drag it out of myself to speak or to sing. Someone from our church was involved with music and had offered to take me and bring me back for a church function that was in another city. It was someone that I really admired and looked up to at about the same time in my life that I was talking about earlier in this post, around 9 years old. I can't remember if it was on the way there or on the way back I wanted to be able to say something, anything so bad and I saw my chance when one of the signs we were passing was spelled like his name, only his name was spelled with a capital M, only when I said it, it came out, "Look, it's just like your name only not with a capital H". I remember pushing my back hard against the back of the seat and wanting to disappear. Now it's funny to me that I felt the way I did. In learning how to be outgoing I also learned that sometimes it's better to go ahead and laugh, because most of the time I'm only going to laugh about it later anyway.
Several times now, I've thought about getting the book Pilgrim's Progress and reading it again, but now it seems that I was just suppose to be able to envision a picture in my head, like what I envisioned when I first read Pilgrim's Progress when I was 10 or 11. The picture I see in my mind doesn't have anything to do with the story at all. It was a good book, and I still want to read it again, but not for the same reasons now. The picture I see has a person traveling down a path, with several different paths running beside it. Each path has it's own obstacles and turns, but they all lead to the same place.
I guess because of the way I grew up or am still growing, it's difficult for me to "choose" what religion I want to be. It's hard for me to understand why Christians can't just call themselves Christians instead of Baptists or Methodists, or whatever. I think the Pastor that I told I wanted to join his church, but I didn't want to join understands. I'm very blessed that God gives people patience with me who are connected to me by this blog or in my life somehow.
In the conversation I had with the Pastor, I told him that I didn't want to be a Baptist. His answer was that he didn't call himself a Baptist, man called him a Baptist because of the methods that they use. They happen to use the Baptist method and that's why they're called Baptists. It makes me feel a little better about being a Baptist, but I still don't want to think of myself as a Baptist. So I envisioned that religions are like paths. The path you choose to travel has it's own methods by which to keep moving forward down the path. Or the path may not be religion at all, maybe it's just our own personal paths and sometimes we fall off our own and end up on someone else's. It looks like we're all headed the same way. We believe that through Jesus is the only way to heaven. We must confess our sins and believe that He is the Son of God who was raised from the dead and sent by God to forgive us of our sins.
I want God to set his church on fire (not literally) and I'm hoping God has someone else in mind to do it. Now more than ever we should be warning, encouraging and witnessing to everyone we care about and even those we don't care about, but should. I believe that God does work in mysterious ways beyond my comprehension. He works in ways that don't make sense to me and He sounds like what we tell our own children, "don't ask me why, just do it".
posted by Chris Smith @ 11:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home