Sunday, November 6, 2011

My Ugly Truth



There is a huge part of me that doesn't want to write this post.  I'm scared of what you all will think of me; of my faith and my God.  This past week I've had this underlying feeling that I needed to sit down and be still.  I knew for some reason that I needed to read.  I had no idea what or why, I just knew I had to.  I picked up a book this evening that has been sitting on my shelf for about 2 years.  My brother gave it to me for Christmas a while back.  The book is called "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan and it's all about the Holy Spirit.  I think I've been putting off reading it for the exact same reason that I'm both scared to write this post and know that I have to.

According to Chan, there are two main reasons that people don't ask the Holy Spirit to show up more in their lives.  1. They are scared that if they do ask, that He won't show and they'll be disappointed and lose faith in God.  2. They aren't sure that they want Him to show up because they are scared of what He might ask them to do.  I'm going to go ahead and bite the bullet and say that I fit into BOTH of these categories, but I'm really struggling with #2.  I want to be courageous and I want to live a godly life and do His will, but only in my head.  In real life, I'm a coward.  In real life, I want people that I work with to like me.  In real life, I want to have nice things and a nice family.  In real life, I don't want to get fired for sharing the gospel with my coworkers, or eventually, my students.  I don't want my neighbors to think I'm cookoo, or to be THAT person that people make fun of for actually thinking that the Holy Spirit can do miraculous things.  I'm wholly concerned about being popular to you, and not at all concerned about letting The Counselor that God gave me actually show up in my life.

The really sad thing is: I know this and can see it in all I do, but I'm still too scared to change anything.  I love my God, and I love Jesus, but I'm not sure I've ever really known the Holy Spirit.  Honestly, I'm ashamed of myself.  I know God has so much more planned for my life.  I know He showed me how much I'm lacking in my relationship with Him so that I'd do something about it.  Killing my pride is so much harder than I thought.

4 comments:

  1. I juzt read a post from another blog I follow and thought you might find it interesting. Check out "Our Happy little Nest".
    http://ourhappylittlenest.blogspot.com/2011/11/perspective-in-gift-journal-entry-82411.html

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  2. Can't believe I misspelled "just".

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  3. Thanks Jackie! She def hit the nail on the head. I'm starting to realize that I'm being challenged and stretched to change my perspective and reexamine my loyalties. There can never be any change if you don't realize that anything that is wrong.

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  4. Thanks for sharing! I have this on my list of things to read, so now I am even more interested!

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