First of all, it has been waaay too long since I’ve blogged. The main reason is because my son’s laptop decided to call it quits and so he has been using mine during the day for school. By the time I get it back, there just isn’t enough time left in the day to do much writing. I’ve actually been working on this blog for several weeks, and just haven’t been able to sit down long enough to finish a complete thought. But, tonight is the night I finish it! (Hopefully my kids keep the peace long enough for me to concentrate.) This may be a little long, but I think if you take the time to read it, you might appreciate at least one thing I’m going to say.
Now, on to the jungle thing. Sometimes I feel like things would be a lot easier to figure out if I had been born in a jungle. Yep…I said it…a jungle, with NO people around (besides my parents of course to bring me into the world).
Let me explain. I grew up in a Christian home. My parents both loved Jesus and talked about Him in our home every chance they got. Prayer was very much a part of our everyday lives as a family. In fact, I accepted Jesus as my personal savior about the age of 4. I still remember coming home from Sunday school one afternoon, and when I was by myself, I “asked Jesus into my heart”. My dad read the Bible (or another kid’s Bible story book) to me almost every day as far back as I can remember. We went to church every time the doors were open. I attended a Christian school from grades K-12. I knew all the kid songs about Jesus, all the church hymns, and all the “praise & worship” songs. We even sang them in our home. My childhood was more than I could have asked for, and overall, my church experience was a positive one as well.
So why the thoughts of jungle living? Well, to understand why I must continue. For some reason, growing up, I struggled with feeling secure in my salvation. I’m not saying I’ve ever doubted that salvation exists, but I have had a very hard time grasping one thing – God’s grace.
I actually have memories of lying in my bed at night as a little girl, and praying this prayer – “Dear Jesus, please forgive me for any sins I’ve done today, even the sins I might have forgotten about or can’t remember. Please forgive me because I want to go to Heaven and be with you one day.”
I remember praying that prayer daily because I didn’t want Jesus to come back without me asking Him to forgive me for everything I “might” have done.
Recently, I started thinking back on that time in my life, and I started wondering why I used to pray that prayer. I know it wasn’t what I was taught at home, and I’m pretty positive I wasn’t taught that idea at my school or church.
Most people that know me, know that I homeschool my 2 kids. They are currently using the same curriculum I grew up using – ABeka. They use ABeka’s online Academy, and actually watch videos of a real class with a real teacher from the main headquarters in Florida. Each day, my kids start their day off with Bible class. In the class they sing songs, pray, and listen to the teacher tell them a Bible story as she relates it to their lives.
One morning, I was in Zoe’s room getting some of her worksheets together when I hear her teacher say something about asking Jesus to forgive us of our sins….and that we need to ask Him to forgive us every day for things that we might have done wrong. Zoe immediately paused her class and asked me “Mom, does that mean if I forget to ask God to forgive me of something I do wrong today, I won’t go to Heaven if I die tonight!?”
Obviously, I explained to Zoe that sin is a willful transgression against God (James 4:17). And that only HE knows her heart. I explained again what it means to accept God’s grace and forgiveness and what it means to repent from our sins and ask Him to help us live for Him. After our conversation, I could tell she was completely relieved and had a better understanding of God’s grace.
Then it hit me! That is the SAME question I had growing up, but for some reason, I never went to MY parents to get clarity! UGH! I SOO wish I would have, because I have sure struggled with that one for a long time.
Somehow I grew up feeling like a slave to the “law”. I knew all the “Dos and don’ts” and for the most part followed them all for fear that God wouldn’t see me as “saved”. I felt like I was always seeking His “approval”.
Recently, I was reading Galatians and found myself just mulling over it and reading it again and again and again. It just came to life to me all over again. Verses that I had heard and read before just jumped out of the pages at me! There are only 6 chapters in Galatians (which by the way you should totally read when you get a chance!) but there is so much good stuff in those 6 chapters! Here are some things that really stood out to me:
I’m going to mix a few verses together here, but they start in Gal 2:16 – We Christians know that we become right with God, not by doing what the law commands, but by faith in Jesus Christ…for no one will ever be saved by obeying the law. Vs 19: For when I tried to keep the law, I realized I could never earn God’s approval. So I died to the law so that I might live for God…for if we could be saved by keeping the law, then there was no need for Christ to die.
WHAT?! I KNOW I’ve read this before, but I guess I just never understood what this really means. It’s like the light bulb finally went on! This is good news! I still believe we ARE to follow what God commands us to do and live in a way that bring glory and honor to Him, however I feel like now I have a much better understanding of what God’s GRACE really looks like.
Gal 5 goes on to say something else crazy. It says: Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for He is the one who called you to freedom. But it takes only one wrong person among you to infect all the others – a little yeast spreads quickly through the whole batch of dough!
Just like Zoe’s teacher’s one statement (which by the way was very well intentioned and correct after I re-listened to the whole lesson) confused her and made her question what she (at her young age of 8) knows to be true, it dawned on me, the same thing happened to me. Because I grew up around so many people that taught me about God, I’m certain that at some point in time something one of them said brought on my confusion. It’s almost like sometimes we have too many voices in our life. Sometimes so many people speaking at once can cause more confusion than I’m sure none of them had intended on causing. Things bring me to the idea that jungle life would have been a LOT easier.
I sometimes think about the people who have never heard the gospel preached, yet are able to look at nature around them and see that there is a creator. I’m certain there are those people who are able to have a relationship with God through just observing what is around them and knowing deep inside them that there is something or someone bigger out there. And I like to just imagine how completely raw and organic and amazing their relationship with Him must be. No religious talk around them. No one trying to tell them all the rules they should follow and how they should live their live, or even what someone else’s opinion of salvation is. Maybe just maybe, THEY are the ones who have the closest, most honest relationship with Him.
I know we can’t “undo” things we’ve heard, but I have actually prayed that God give me a NEW mindset, NEW thoughts, and a NEW understanding of His love and mercy and grace. One of the last verses in Galatians says this (and it’s one of my favorites!)
“From now on, don’t let anyone trouble me with these things, for I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus!” (Gal 6:17)
That’s good stuff. I hope you find peace in knowing that no matter what you’ve done, and no matter how many times you’ve sinned against God, He forgives you! If you are born again, it’s that simple – YOU BELONG TO JESUS and nothing you do can take that away!
No comments:
Post a Comment