during the liturgy at church today, as i was responding before communion, i was struck with one specific part, when the congregation says, "we do not approach this table trusting in our own righteousness." and as i said those words, i began to think on all the sundays in my life when i had approached the Lord, His house, His meal, or His people with my trust placed completely in my own ability to be good on my own. i figured this accounts for at least 75 percent of days, today included.
my heart lifted as the bishop from northern uganda spoke about how after he chose Jesus at age 19, his life was changed forever. and then, my heart sank. i remembered my own life, how i chose Jesus when i was only 8 years old. though i know i understood the Gospel when i accepted it, i don't feel like there is such a moment in my life. it's kind of strange when your life is one huge process full of little moments, each important in its own way. your life starts to feel less like a testimony and more like a history lesson.
i still struggle with my "testimony." in my younger years, i felt i didn't have one at all. in high school, i knew it existed but just thought it was way more lame than everyone else's. all of their stories had the darkest mistakes and the most epic conquerings of them. mine paled in comparison, i thought.
today i feel better about where the Lord has brought me, but i still feel this testimony and my self-righteousness are related. i never did all the "bad" stuff other kids did. i just sinned and sinned and sinned in my heart.
i have wished for some massive failures, and i've gotten them. i have wanted drastic recoveries, and God has moved. i guess they just came later for me than for others. i am still in constant need of God's refining, because often i still see myself in terms of what i can do. i have trouble with trust. but despite my reluctance, i accept. and in accepting the fire, i receive God's grace. and a righteousness that is not mine at all.
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I know what you mean about your testimony. I remember my youth minister's testimony of being rescued from a drug addiction (similar to Chris Warner's testimony ... I think) and just hearing a bunch of other people's stories of how God turned their life around, and how these stories have made me feel in the past that I don't really have a story.
ReplyDeleteLike your story, or at least how I understand it from here, my story is more of a culmination of small moments - I can hardly remember any specific moments where I grew closer to God - rather than a certain moment where I felt God calling me from a drastic sin. My story is more of a gradual understanding in my mind and, as I've found only recently, in my heart, where over time I have come to know Him more and more.
I'm beginning to see that my story isn't lame like I used to think. My story is one where I have been granted much grace to not have entered deep into sin; one where I can find evidence that all through my life God has continued to reveal more and more of Himself to me; one where I have found that there is so much to learn and to come to know and that there always will be.
Thanks for having this blog and sharing these things.
And I'm sure you don't care to know this, but I could really go for some warm pecan pie with some vanilla ice cream on it.
-Ben T.