A valid question that is asked of me and many other Christians is "Why God?" Why choose to serve and worship God? Why devote yourself to a God you can not see? If you would have asked me that before God had gotten through to me, I would have said because it is just something I grew up in. Going to church, listening to worship music, all of the churchy things were things I did out of habit and obligation. Not out of love and reverence for God.
Fast Forward to now my answer has drastically changed. I choose God everyday because he has done more for me than anyone or anything here on earth that I can see and feel. I choose God because even during my unfaithfulness he chose me and was faithful to me.
I went through a season (of what seemed like forever) of severe anxiety, deep hatred for people and even myself. Bitterness and fear led me down such a terrible road until I couldn't take it anymore. I cut all of my friends off, which left me lonely. Then the people that I did allow to stay in my life only cosigned with my hardness of heart and bad decisions I was making. Back then I thought that meant they were loyal friends, but cosigning with harmful behavior is not being a good friend just fyi. Love and friendship is not tolerating bad behavior. Love is holding your friends accountable and confronting them with grace, but that is beside the point. In this time I lost who I was. I thought that I was just an angry and anxious person and that would always be the case. I thought that my fear of failure which drove my perfectionist personality was a good quality that would help me succeed in life. During this time my mother biblically encouraged me, but I wanted nothing to do with God. The further I pushed God away and the more I isolated myself, the more the devil fed me lies that I believed for so long. Eventually I got to the point where I needed a therapist. I could not identify my emotions or what led me to feel them so strongly. I started to have panic attacks over things such as leaving the house or my room. There were intrusive thoughts that would convince me something bad would happen if I did. There was so much turmoil going on in my own heart and mind that I knew something needed to change, because I could not push past the fear and anger in my own strength anymore.
Around the same time I started seeing a therapist, my mom forced me to go to the high school church service on Wednesday. (Shoutout to my Capitol family! Love y'all the most.) I hated it, but I because I love my mom and she wanted me there, I went. While figuring things out with my therapist, I learned some techniques to help my mind from running away from me, but when I began to spiral or panic they never worked. I continued going to church and met some friends, joined a small group, and lots of other things, but I was not reading my bible or pursuing God outside of church. So, I felt like the biggest hypocrite. (In reality it wasn't a feeling, I definitely was.) Anyway that drove me to actually pursue Jesus like I should. I remember praying and saying something along the lines of "I am so sorry I have pushed you away. I want to try this Christian thing for real and experience this whole life transformation people talk about. I can't live like this any longer. I need you to heal me emotionally and mentally."
From that day on I took Jesus seriously. I read my bible everyday for as long as I could focus. Which in the beginning was not long, but God saw my heart and hunger to know him and he blessed that. I want to say within a few months I was a completely different person. I stopped seeing my therapist and the panic attacks stopped. The intrusive thoughts stopped. I could physically feel a burden being lifted off of my chest. Emotions and suffering I had been enduring for so long (because I allowed the devil to keep me in the dark) had finally come to an end because I let God shine his light on me.
Moral of this story is nothing that I did in my own strength, or my mom did, or my therapist did helped heal me. It was not until I let go and acknowledged my weakness and sought after God's strength everyday did I experience freedom from the season of life I was in. I chose God that one day and I have never stopped choosing him. He wrecked my life in the best possible way. He destroyed the lies I believed and replaced them with His truth. He saved me when I could not save myself, even though I desperately tried. I can not even put into words how grateful I am for Jesus Christ. That when he owed me nothing he gave me EVERYTHING. Everything.
I want people to experience this kind of freedom so bad. I want people to know that God is who He says He is and keeps all of His promises. He loves you. He wants you. He will fight for you. And I don't know if you know this but He never loses a battle. If you have experienced God in this way I would love to hear your testimony and why you choose God. If you haven't experienced God's redemption power but want to, let's talk, let's pray, let me walk alongside you and be there for you on your walk with Christ.
If you have made it this far, thank you.
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