Once upon a time, I had a conversation with God. Well not really a conversation because I did all the talking and none of the listening.

“God, leave me alone. I can’t do this anymore. I try so hard to do what you want but I can’t. I can’t stop chasing relationships that I know you don’t approve of. I know that you died for me but, wow, what a waste. I didn’t ask you to do that. I certainly don’t deserve it. I’m just tired of letting you down. I’m tired of feeling awful about living a life I can’t get away from. God, other people just live their life their own way and never seem to struggle with it. They just do what they want. So, I don’t want to feel this anymore. Just let me go do life my whatever life so I don’t have to feel this way anymore.”

What an awful “prayer”! I feel that I asked God to sear my conscious. I didn’t want to feel the conviction that comes with living a outside of the will of God. I wanted to live my life the sinful way I wanted- period. It wasn’t my preference. I wanted to do everything right. I wanted to live just the way God wanted. I couldn’t. It caused me pain. One of my top priority was to avoid pain.

What I blessing that God didn’t do that! There were so many things I didn’t understand about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and living as a Christian.

1. The fact that I couldn’t live a sinless life is why Jesus came and lived and died. Jesus lived that perfect life we couldn’t and paid the price for our sins that we couldn’t. I never understood that , on my own, I couldn’t never live holy. No matter how good I could be it would never be enough in the sight of a Holy God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God. 1 John 3:5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
2. Grace In accepting the sacrifice of Jesus, grace is available to me. The blood of Jesus is strong enough to cover the past present and future sin of every person who ever existed. While accepting Christ frees me from the punishment of sin, it does not mean that I will never sin again. I honestly thought that’s what it meant. I thought that if I was really saved I would immediately stop all sinning. It’s amazing to me that I had gone to church my entire life without understanding the importance of this verse: 1 John 2:1-2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
3. I am not alone. In addition to Jesus advocating to the Father on our behalf, we have the Holy Spirit in us. 1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, who you have received from God? You are not your own. Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies… Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. God did not leave us abandoned and forsaken but sent us a helper. A helper to advise us. A guide to lead us and when necessary to convict us. An agent in our sanctification-the process of our being conformed more and more to the likeness of Christ.
4. God loves ME! I believed that “God so loved the world” but really didn’t feel it applied to me. When I became able to accept His love the world changed. It righted my view of God and living as a Christian. I don’t live right to avoid God’s judgement or anger (Jesus bore our sin on the cross and there is therefore no more condemnation-Romans 8:1). I don’t live right for fear of losing His love (There is nothing that can separate us from God’s love-Romans 8:38-39) I live right because I love Him because He first loved me. What more can you do for the One who purchased your eternity? I owe Him everything because I have nothing without Him. Everyday is a gift and when I die Heaven and not Hell awaits me.
5. It’s all for the asking. When I need strength, I can ask my Father for it. (James 2:2b You do not have because you do not ask God) I can go to my forever family-fellow believers in Christ–for prayer and counsel. (James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.) I can read what God’s word says about it. (Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path) In all my “trying” I never tried asking in faith and waiting for an answer. I never trusted my problems to Him. I figured He had better things to do that help me out of one mess or another that I’d gotten myself into.

I am so grateful God did not give me over to a depraved mind (Romans 1:28-32) As I look around me, there seems to be a lot of that going on. The journey from that terrible hopeless prayer to today is a reminder that God is still in the miracle business. He is still breathing life into dead things. I live my life by these words of Paul:

Philippians 3:12-14 (GNT) I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to Himself. Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above. ‘

Be Blessed