Faith

---

I was 30 years old and my life was in shambles. My marriage was falling apart and I had three young children to worry about and care for. I been a stay at home mom and didn’t know how I would provide for my family. Christian friends were abandoning me and everything was collapsing around me. Worst of all, I was dealing with doubts about my relationship with Christ. I wasn’t sure I was really a Christian and I needed some guidance desperately. I had grown up in a Christian home, accepted Christ when I was 9 years old, attended Christian college where I met my husband, and together we were working in a youth ministry in our local church. I met with the pastor of our church and poured my heart out to him. “I am doubting everything I was raised to believe. I am cruising through life resting on my Christian upbringing but I want to have a personal relationship with God that is all my own. How do I do that?”

Remarkably, the pastor was silent. He had no answers for me. I left his office feeling more desolate than when I went in. If the pastor couldn’t help me, was there any hope for me at all? My life careened out of control and for the next 15 years I drifted aimlessly and left the church in my wake. Evidently, God was not relevant to the problems of a single mother who was rejected by her husband so I abandoned my search for him.

When I turned 40 years old life once again came crashing down on me. I had raised my children and they were young adults now. My youngest son came to me one day and announced his intention to join the Army. This was in the months following the terrible tragedy of September 11. My heart froze in my chest, I literally felt sick, and I didn’t know what to say to him. As a mother, it was the worst decision I thought my son could make. Didn’t he know he would end up in Iraq? Didn’t he understand he could be killed? I became angry at God. “Why would you take my son away from me?” I sobbed.

To make matters worse, my mother called a few days after and announced my father, a pastor for over 25 years, was leaving her. According to her, he had sacrificed his life for everyone else and now he wanted to ‘find himself’. What in the world was going on?? Suddenly, everything I had been taught came rushing at me like a torrent of angry flood water. Had every Christian principle I learned meant absolutely nothing? My fury was directed at my father because he had hammered home Bible truths and scripture which suddenly seemed to have no purpose at all. I felt cheated and betrayed by a man who I believed represented God.

I lay in bed that night turning everything over and over in my mind. I remembered the days spent memorizing and reciting BMA (Bible Memory Association) verses and all the innumerable hours spent in the church as a young person. If God meant nothing to my father, a man who had preached and been instrumental in saving others, then who was he? I thought about my son who would be deploying to Iraq and how I hadn’t given him the benefit of growing up with a faith or trust in God. Deep in my heart I felt an irresistible stirring and knew I had to discover God for myself. I couldn’t rely on the faith of my father or mother when it came to an intimate relationship with God. “Lord,” I prayed, “I’ve wandered far from you over these last years and I don’t know who you are. I want a personal relationship with you, one I can call my own, which will bring meaning and purpose to my crazy life.”

The next day I dug through some boxes and pulled out a worn burgundy colored Bible I had been given by my ex-husband for Christmas the year we were first married. It was a painful reminder of the past but I knew God wanted me to move forward and that meant opening my Bible for the first time in years. I didn’t know where to start so, when in doubt, start at the beginning. I began to read in Genesis and each day learned more and more about who God really is. The awesome creator of life, the loving father, a fair and righteous judge, the anointer of kings, and a jealous God who wants us to love only him. As I worked through the New Testament I saw the amazing connections with the Old Testament. For the first time in my life, the Bible became a living, breathing revelation of the Almighty God who loved me enough to sacrifice his own son so I could have a personal relationship with him.

For the past 16 years I have been building a deeper fellowship with God than I ever imagined possible. Each day, as I study his word and spend time in prayer, I develop a more intimate understanding of who he is. Bible verses, once memorized for weekly prizes, have become treasured reminders of how he is working in my life. The Bible is relevant and living and applicable to every situation in my life. I am learning to trust him and have faith in his promises. God is always with me even in the darkest moments or tribulations of life.

It is easy to rest on the faith of our fathers or mothers and think our redemption is secure because of their relationship with God. However, it is not a valid assumption. Each of us has to come to a recognition of our own desperation and separation from God. The only way we can have confidence in our relationship with him is to understand our own personal need for his salvation. God loved us, as individuals, enough to place the burden of our sins on his beloved son. If we believe in Christ’s sacrifice for us and acknowledge we are unable to appease God’s requirements for perfection we can be redeemed. We can cultivate a deep, intimate connection with God which will overshadow the meaningless, superficial relationships in our lives.

Don’t relax in the faith of your fathers or rely on their salvation to bring peace to your heart. Spend time in God’s word each day and grow in your own understanding of who he is and how he relates to your circumstances. Pray and open your heart to him and allow him to speak to you. You will discover, by learning more about him, you can have a relationship more intimate and encouraging than you ever imagined.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR