Being in a place where everyone is on a spiritual journey has got me thinking about a lot of things. I don’t want to discourage anything if it IS God, but I want to talk about the limits I’ve experienced to finding truth internally…
My own personal salvation experience. I went on a 5 day fast to find truth - didn’t go to class, just
read about Islam, Hinduism, Creationism etc… and on the 4th day I woke up
knowing Jesus was Lord. That bothered me so much. Here I was trying to
intellectually prove my faith, and I wanted to come out of that time knowing
the truth by the strength of my own intellect. But it didn’t happen that way. I
didn’t know why I knew, and I didn’t see any proof that was truly the right way
to go until after I had been following Christ for almost a year.
I was so bothered when I couldn’t tell people why I believed. And at some level
I was bothered because the truth seemed so vanilla… Everyone believes
this stuff, so what was special about it? However where I really saw difference
was in the action. Yes everyone believes it but few people act on scripture.
Few people take the Bible and go look in it for how they should act or what
they should do. And therein lies the power.
I have been epically wrong about who I am. Dating sites are a great idea. There’s just one problem… When
asked what people want in a future spouse and then polled after they get
married, their results are extremely different. It turns out most of us really
have no clue what we want in a life partner until it comes along.
I can say the same thing for who I am. I’ve known some things about who I am
but have been horribly wrong about others. I thought I was a technical person -
you give me a project, I’ll get it done fast and I’ll get it done well. I
thought I was a programmer. I thought I was a specialist.I was really
frustrated at God when I got kicked out of Peniel - suddenly I had to lead an
organization instead of just take orders. That wasn’t me - I hated it.
Or was it? I had never seen myself as a leader, even though everyone around me
had. However, the saving grace was that I wasn’t making decisions based on who
I was but based on what God said. So I ended up in the right place even when I
was completely wrong about who God made me to be.
Identity is in Relationships. This should be a no-brainer but it isn’t… Our most key identities
in life are in our relationships… Brother, husband, father, leader, friend,
colleague. So much of who we are is actually tied to the people in our lives
and our relationships to them. If that is the case, how can we really discover
who we are just by looking inside?
Jesus says purpose comes when you lose your life. When you put others first, then you find out why you were created. This is super provable… Everyone else is telling you to do what feels good, treat yourself, live for the moment etc. Jesus says to do the opposite - die to yourself and you’ll find life. Do one or the other for a year then see how you feel afterwards!
