Have you ever heard someone say “I was called to …”? I have before, and often thought with a bit of skepticism and doubt: “How did THAT happen?” when I heard someone say that. A little concern about “brain wash,” or “over compensating” to be honest.
Does that happen “magically” one day? How does one know that is happening? Is the person saying this to make themselves seem important or special? What’s the ulterior motive in this? Are they going to be judging me now because of this? then…I don’t know if I can relate to them anymore…
I can’t tell you what it is like for others, but I can tell you what this is like for me and the only reason I’m writing this is because maybe this is happening to you and you don’t recognize it? Because I didn’t. I was opposite of “that” person who received a calling (I never knew what my purpose was, or what I should be doing); just an average “normal” person. But something in me is changing over time, for years in fact, VERY gradually. So gradually, that I didn’t recognize it was happening, until now.
How did it start?
Hindsight always makes everything clearer. As a child, I learned about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. I learned how to pray. I believed in what I was taught and off and on, randomly, throughout life at various times, I prayed but not consistently. I always seemed to keep my belief, but the belief was often buried and personal and I lived a “normal” life.
How did it progress?
- My conscience. My inner conscience would conflict with the way I was living and as I struggled with the conflict, I would make gradual changes, a little at a time. I made bad decisions and then suffered the consequences, over and, over and, over again! There is a quote about change:
CHANGE occurs when the PAIN of doing the same is GREATER than the FEAR/UNCOMFORTABLE process of CHANGE.
- Other people in my life: mentors, those whom I respected influenced me: not by “preaching” to me; I didn’t want or need that, but by me paying attention to how they lived, by the example they gave, by their actions, not by their words and through the respect I had towards them. This contributed to my inner conscience tugging of knowing right from wrong. And honestly, those who were not living in a “biblical” way also had an influence on me: I could see the pain they brought into their lives by their actions, similar to my own pain. I wanted change, but didn’t know how.
- Finding a church that felt welcoming. I participated in a few churches over the years, but always felt like an “outsider.” I believed in the biblical teachings, but didn’t get a good feeling/connected feeling from the people who were there. I didn’t fit in, so I didn’t participate fully. Years went by and because of a tragedy/death, I visited a non-denomination church, one that many people had suggested to me, but I didn’t even give it a chance; I thought it was “too different” from what I knew growing up. It was different, but why didn’t I realize the obvious: It WAS different, and all along I never felt like I connected anywhere else, so why did I resist trying something new? I was looking for something different! I don’t have the answer to that question, but do know that it took a tragedy to get me there; the year was 2015. I started going to church occasionally, then started getting more involved in exploring and understanding what this church was all about. I found a connection here. It was a non-denomination, Christian church, based on the direct teachings of the Bible and nothing else. Every question was answered with: “What does the bible tell us?”
- Exploring the bible. This was something I never accomplished: reading the entire bible, and I still haven’t, but I found there are too many things that pointed me back to the Bible being the truth and knowing that various religions acknowledge what is in the Bible, but have different beliefs. For example, Jesus. I was amazed to find out that Muslims acknowledge that Jesus lived; but they do not believe He was the Son of God. I knew Jewish people felt the same, but also acknowledge Jesus’ existence. I also thought: how could this book survive over 2,000 years if there wasn’t a strong basis in truth that was passed on for generations? 2016 was the year of exploring this non-denomination church further and by 2017 I decided I needed to “Surrender to God” knowing that I needed change and wanting God to direct my life.
What happened during this change?
Well in my mind, I had the following expectations: once I “surrendered to God” my life would be peaceful, without pain and wonderful. I was wrong! Almost immediately bad things started happening in my life: personally, financially, relationally; some of the worst hardships I ever experienced. I struggled more than ever and I didn’t understand why this was happening, but I still had hope that I did the right thing, things would turn around and I kept faith in God to see me through all this. So then 2018 arrives and I’m still hopeful, there were many good things that happened that year, and I focused on the good, but the bad was still weighing heavily on me and I was still struggling. Then I was again hopeful about 2019, but 2019 was even harder than the prior two years that I thought were the worst I had experienced. Almost everything was going opposite of good and getting worse, not better. This was not the “story” I expected!
Reflection: In 2017, I considered getting baptized as an adult in this new church (even though I was Baptized as a child and Confirmed later- I went through the motions in doing this Confirmation, because that was what everyone else did. I recall my confirmation was a renewal of the baptism beliefs my parents said on my behalf and I still had those same beliefs, so I was Confirmed).
This “new” baptism commitment, that was offered and happening at this church, was different to me as an adult. To me, this meant if I did it, I am making a promise to God to live my life according to his commands, no loopholes, no excuses for behavior, no leniency. I decided in 2018, while I was changing for the better, I wasn’t ready to completely change and make that commitment. In 2019, I questioned it again: why I should consider being baptized, if I made the commitment personally to God, then why would I need to be so “public” with it? Is it for show? So I didn’t go through with it again.
During 2019, I started looking up things in the bible to gain knowledge and answers about questions I had. And I started reading a little here and there with the end goal eventually getting through the bible over time. Then one night before I went to bed, I decided to randomly open the bible and read whatever I opened, hoping that God would give me some insight into my life and struggles. Wow! So I opened it to the book of Job and started reading: It started with Satan telling God he could gain Job’s soul basically. Satan took control over Job’s life and destroyed everything about it, convinced that Job would reject God. The majority of the book was Job questioning why this was happening and why God was doing this to him (but God wasn’t, Job didn’t understand) when Job was living his life in accordance with God’s commands, bad was happening. He challenged God, was angry with God because he felt unjustifiably harmed, but maintained his faith and trust in God throughout all the bad that was happening in his life. His friends even thought he was being punished for doing wrong and told him he needed to repent and ask for forgiveness. As I was reading this, it’s a long book, I had to skip to the end because it was so depressing and it was making me even more sad, feeling like giving up. I could relate it to my life and how I was feeling about all the bad in it, I wanted to know how the story ended. I was glad to see in the end that God restored Job and Job’s life was even better than it had been in the past. The story taught hope through perseverance. That was what I needed.
Again in 2019, I found, exploring the Bible, more answers to questions I had, but again, these were not the answers that I wanted. They were answers that caused me even more pain, sadness and loss of hope. It was so painful to me that I decided to speak with a Pastor, which I did a couple times. And it was helpful, I gained insight into parts of the Bible I had not yet explored and it gave me hope once again.
At the same time, I talked to my sister, who has always been one of strong faith and she introduced me to a Bible app that she has used before and found beneficial. She texted me a link so I decided to download the app and explore what was in it. I was completely amazed at how much work went into creating this app and how effective this app is. Everything is from the Bible (you can choose what version you use; I use the NIV version) and there are reading plans for every question or situation you could imagine. You can search a word and it will find biblical passages or reading plans that relate to your interests or questions or situation. This is something so helpful, the app will audibly read the bible to you, so you can listen when you are driving, or before you go to bed, or anytime you need, or want it and it’s a resource you have with you all the time, because it’s on your phone. You can download it here: https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/
Conclusion.
I am still on this slow journey, but I do believe that God put people in my life and allowed things to happen in my life to bring me back, wake me up, make me change my ways and I am committed more than I’ve ever been to doing this. My story hasn’t finished, but I’m realizing through this series of events, that I am “being called” to make a change in my life.
S.A.I.L. 