There was a lot of stuff that happened in this guys' life and a lot that God had to do to make him realize his dependence on God. He called them the 'wilderness days.' He struggled with pride and living life like he didn't need God. He talked about how God had to bring him to a place of dependence on Him. God closed all of the doors and brought his pride down. God allowed situations in this guys' life that broke him and made him understand just how wrong he had been - running from what God had for him to do. He ended it by talking about how Gods' plans are so much better than our own, even when he takes us through the wilderness and the time of just horribleness or blahness, his plans are still better. We need to let God lead us. And when God's people don't let him lead, he brings them to the desert, to the wilderness until they have no other choice but to let God lead.
His testimony was very touching to me and I realized that I had been judging him and remembering him only in the context of his past, assuming a lot about him. We all struggle with this, I know, but God has really put it on my heart to look at people through his loving eyes. See how much God cares about them. See them as people who struggle too. See that they are on a journey too. And see that God can use anyone. I would hate for people to think of me only for the bad things i've done. People change, mature, encounter God, etc. We can't hold their past against them. We can't hold their present against them. This testimony of a guy I knew in college was another example of how we think we know people but we don't. And I realized how much pride I had. Praise God for revealing the truth and readily forgiving.
But God didn't just stop there.
I've been going through a hard time of not knowing what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to be. Not being able to find a full-time job and being frustrated that I'm 27 and living at home again. I'm frustrated about not being able to go to New Zealand to live again, or even to visit. I'm frustrated about a lot of things. It seems that every move I have tried to make had been thwarted. Everything I have done to try to lead myself has failed. I know I'm in the wilderness and have been for some time. I know that God is working on me, drawing me closer and closer to him. This guys' testimony was exactly what God wanted me to hear and to know. God wants me to follow him. To let him take the lead of my life. God is always working in my life. Sometimes I'm kicking and screaming into what he wants to do. And sometimes I follow willingly. He has been disciplining me and making me depend on him; strengthening me, and just recently freeing me from some ugly sin that was controlling my life. Looking back on a lot of things, I see Gods' strong hand and heart in them and I see that the doors that God closed were for my own good and that the struggles I had were there to draw me closer to him. And I see how better it is now that he's taken me where I have been. It's still a struggle to let him lead, but God's working on me. I feel encouraged though. I am where I'm supposed to be. My situation is what God has me in right now. I remember the guy in the testimony saying that God's path is better no matter what it looks like. Sometimes it's a easy path filled with lots of joy and other times it's a very difficult path full of much sorrow. But the comfort is in knowing that God is leading us, and actually following him. One of the best illustrations from the testimony is that 'sometimes God lights one step at a time before us because if we saw what was over the edge we would pass out or be too scared to go on.' It just really encouraged me. There was so much more to the sermon, but that's how God spoke to me.
So, yeah, I need to let God lead me and be willing to follow him onto whatever path.
