Wednesday 15 May 2013

STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN, IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU FALL!



Talk of starting all over again. I have done this many times and I will not give up.  It is through my falling and waking up that has brought me this far.  I have realized most of the time when we are ok and everything is alright with us, we are comfortable.  But let me tell you, until you fall and wake up then you will never know how far you have come and where you are going.  Well, I am not justifying falling here, but most of the time we find ourselves there and am talking out of my personal experience.  I know there are those who do not get challenges and they stand, but I will share my experience and encourage those in my shoes.     I like comparing my state with a child who just starts to walk. In a normal circumstance, there is no child that has ever woken up at once and walked.  They go step by step falling until they stand stable and walk.  Even in their walk it does not mean they do not stumble again and fall but it is in all these falling that they find strength, hope, and courage to continue walking and reach their destination.

In my last post, I wrote how down I was by way of not reading the word of God consistently and this has really weighed me down for sometime now.  But I did not just post for the sake of posting, I was looking for a place to pour out my heart and my weakness so that I can be relieved.  I embarked on my weakness and am picking up my pieces by going back to the drawing board and asked myself where did I go wrong?  In the process, I found out what exactly went wrong and I am working on it.  I realized the main thing is that I had not forgiven myself for something I felt I did that did not please my God.  It has not been very easy for me to come to term with it, but I know I did not please my God at all and that is why I had no fellowship with God because our God is always right and he can never go wrong.  He will never pat my back when I go wrong but he will enable me identify my falling and give me room to repent and go back to him.   (1st John 1:9-10)  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.  The word of God is always the answer to all our problems,  I may not get someone to help me with my problems but I am not supposed to sit there and wait for someone to come I have to do something and my option was to go back to the Word of God.  It reminded me that if I say I have no sin or have not sinned when I know I have sinned I will make my God look a liar because he knows me in and outside.  When I sin and when I have not sinned.  The Bible has given me many chances not to be embarrassed about myself but love myself the way I am even in my falling because there is always another chance with our God.  He tells me if I confess my sins he is faithful and just to forgive me because he knows me anyway.  This is where he tests my pride and my big head to see if I fall in sin what do I do as his child?  Do I proudly walk in sin and make things to look right when they are not?  Certainly many do that but I thank God am in the category of those that when they sin against God then something happen.  My fellowship is discontinued with him until I make it right with my God.  I realized I asked for forgiveness and confessed my sin but I did not forgive myself and that guilt is the one that has been eating me up and put me to a point of not reading the word. 

So what did I do?  I accepted truly I sinned against my God and confessed and repeated, and then I started reading the word.  Surprisingly I enjoyed the fellowship and started it all over again.  I decided to believe that the Lord forgave me and now I need to forgive myself because that is what weighed me down.  I thought I am a very perfect lady that there are some things that I can’t do but I was shocked I am like any other human being.  We might think we stand all the time and laugh at others who are wallowing in sin.  We forget if we are put in their shoes we will be even worse than them.  What did I learn out of this experience?  That, there are things that we have sworn in our hearts that we cannot do forgetting that the Lord has not allowed them to happen for us not because he loves us more than others but because he created us and he knows what we can handle and what we cannot handle.   I will tell you do not swear just ask God to help you.  What I have experienced from my past is that I will stop being judgmental and take things as they are and seek remedy from there without judging or placing a tag on anything that comes my way.  I thank God I went through what I went through and now I understand the pain, trauma and the rejection that people go through with my experience.  I have come to realize that may be God wanted me to understand the experience so that I stand with people who struggle with some sin.  I will say it is not a good experience but I kept asking God why did I have to go through the pain and anguish of a sin I dreaded all this time.  And I was reminded that he calls me with a purpose and if he has to make use of me, he has to mold and make me understand what his children suffer from, so that I will embrace them the way they are without judging and help them out.  It was not easy for me but now I understand why?  I know there are so many other experiences that the Lord will spare me, but I asked particularly why did this have to happen to me?  I know he meant it well for me because it was a correction and rebuke to something I was hiding from him and it weighed me down to a point that i was not growing spiritually but could not admit it is a weakness.  He had to make my weakness pronounced through this experience so that I can turn away from it and realize that am supposed to walk in spirit and truth.  He has a good plan for me (Jeremiah 29:1)  11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  That my Lord knew me from long time before and my plans are in his hands and they are good plans for me even in my dark days because they are not for harm but for good, hope and a future.  He is preparing me to be used of him through my experiences whether they are good or bad.  The Bible is very clear and is the truth and life.  If you have a problem just go back to the word of God and you will get all the answers to your problem.  Sometimes it can be hard especially when you are going through a tough time, but you can look for a friend or someone who is standing to walk with you because with my experience it was not easy to read the word.  But from the healing I got through repentance and surrender I am able now to confess that I am back on my two feet in reading the word of God daily even if it is not everyday but at least I find myself reading the world often.

When I decided to forgive myself it was the first step for healing but this did not just come up, I had to also seek for forgiveness from someone that I felt I had offended and I had to swallow my pride and reach out to him.  I did not know how the person would have taken it, but I knew I had a role to play by asking for forgiveness.  It does not matter the criteria I would have used but I had to seek for forgiveness.  It was not easy because reaching out to this person was not an easy thing.  But God gave me wisdom to do it and I am shocked at what the Lord can do.  This person God touched him and he looked for me.  He did not really tell me anything in particular because the mode of communication was not conducive to talk much,  but from just looking for me and the effort put to look for me and rekindle our friendship confirmed to me that he has forgiven me and I feel the peace of God that surpasses all understand just right here with me because I am now a free lady.  Simply because I sought to forgive and also forgave myself.  There is no other joy that I will ever seek than this, having my fellowship back with my Lord.  I will say it has not worked for me overnight, it has taken me almost a year now (around 9 months).  You may say you have taken a longer or shorter time to reconcile with your God, but I will encourage you and tell you, do not look at the time frame.  Look at this particular time that you are reading this article and reconcile with the Lord and yourself.  I am now excited because I am reading the word of God daily, and I have the joy of the Lord in my heart.  I can now listen to Gospel songs and channels because I feel now freed to have a fellowship with my Lord.  I am shedding my love tear for my Lord every time I am fellowshipping with him whether reading the Bible, praise and worshiping him, writing such an article I feel the love and peace of my savior.  The fear is fading away and I am celebrating my fellowship. 

My friend I will tell you, salvation is not an easy thing as we may think and I will also say it is not a hard thing as we may think.  Salvation is a process and we are being made perfect each and every day.  Surely (Isaiah 53:4-6) tells me, 4Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  This is very encouraging that Christ died for me so that I am set free.  I may fall and experience the pain but this is only for a short time because the Lord took the painful part that was heavy laden on me and what I feel is because I believe and love the Lord and I do not celebrate when sinning.  When I acknowledge that I have sinned then the Lord will forgive me and reconcile  me with him once I realize it  and repent.  The Bible reminds me that, by the Grace of God I shall overcome because the battle is not mine but the Lords.  If I submit myself to his guidance and protection then I will be set free from all my weaknesses.  It is just a matter of accepting, confessing and repenting.  Then ask God to walk with you even as you go on with life because that is not the end of temptation.  Many will come your way and you will over come them because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you! (Philippians 4:13) 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Having said all that, does not mean that I have been perfected in my reading the word and my fellowship.   I am also doing something in my church a program that will help me stand strong with my fellow believers and I know that things will never be the same again.  My encouragement is that do not sleep there when you fall.   Wake up and ask the Lord to help you forgive yourself and reconcile with the Lord.  Look for people to walk with you because alone, you can’t make it.  Purpose that you will rekindle the first love you had for the Lord and consider it good for you to start all over again and have the full fruits of the fellowship of JESUS CHRIST. 

Thank you Lord for saving my life and this far Lord you have brought me.  Not by my might, but through your power in your Son Jesus Christ who died for me.  (John 3:16) 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

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