My Spiritual Life

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I left the conversation Saturday night really disturbed, feeling like this was some sort of burning bush encounter and that I was having a confrontation with God Himself in which He was trying to speak to me. I drove straight to Mecartney and then broke down and just started weeping uncontrollably. The feeling that I had just entered right there into the presence of God was overwhelming and I think for the first time in my life I got that feeling that people describe of being exposed before God and recognizing with horror their own uncleanliness, “Woe is me, I am ruined!” Part of it came from the dawning realization that my heart is a helpless mess that I can’t even begin to understand, and the only thing I could do was to plead with God to help me make sense of it all. I turned again to Psalm 139 again and prayed “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” At this point I think I truly gave up all claim to know myself and turned fully to God, whom is described in the passage as the God who knew me completely before I was even created.

My prayer after the retreat and during my time away at Prayer Mountain started with this Psalm too. Through the message on Saul, I became convicted that I needed to struggle with my image-consciousness and my desire to gain respect and recognition from others. Saul started off as a guy who genuinely wanted to follow after God’s purpose for his life, but somehow ended up in outright rebellion and disobedience against God. He wasn’t planning to do this, but somewhere along the way his own desire for self-glory hijacked his service to God and ended up bringing destruction to himself and to others. During the reflection time, I realized that I couldn’t be sure that I...

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...ises became so much more relevant to my life. Psalm 139 proved to be so right, that the only one who really knows me is God, so I should cling onto God and trust Him not me. I’m convicted again that God placed spiritual leaders and other people around me to speak truth into my life – it’s ultimately wrong and destructive for me to take on a hardened rebellious attitude toward them. I should regard their presence in my life as a gift and refuse the temptation in my heart to treat the relationship in an adversarial way when I’m being corrected. Most of all I’m thankful to God for this whole incident. Under different circumstances, that Saturday conversation might not have happened, and though it was torturous and ugly, it turned out to be such a wake-up call and catalyst for spiritual struggle in my heart that I know for certain that God’s hand is at work in my life.

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