I shared a testimony during the Regeneration Retreat. Thought I would share it here since I typed it all out. Hope it's an encouragement to you - wherever you may be, and whatever situation you may be in...
There have been several turning points and spiritual lessons that I have learnt through the twenty or so years that I have grown up in the church. Though at times, the years were punctuated with discouraging barriers, God has taught me valuable lessons that have helped me to understand more about the God that I serve. Tonight I want to share with you a few lessons that I have learnt (or at least the ones that came to my mind while preparing this testimony). I hope they will be an encouragement to you!
Studies have shown there are significant links between strong emotion and memory, and likewise, for me the strong emotion of exclusion was one that marked my early church years. In those days, my family did a bit of church-hopping and we came to BPCWA irregularly. As a result, I never got to really know the other kids very well, and I always had the feeling that the other kids didn’t like me because I didn’t go to church as often as they did. I don’t know where that belief came from, but I remember just getting an unfriendly vibe from them. I had no sense of belonging and therefore church was a complete drag. I went to church because I knew it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t want to stay there any longer than I had to and I looked forward each week to the time where my parents would say it was time to go home. Essentially, the feeling of exclusion and the longing to belong was where my fear of man would grow from over the next few years.
From Sunday School, my idea of “service” was more to man than it was to God. I learnt my memory verses because I knew that Aunty such and such would ask me for it – don’t ask me what it actually meant, as long as I could remember it as the car turned the corner onto Ullapool Road, I didn’t care too much about what it actually said. I knew it was right to give offering, but my main motivation was because I knew the other kids had a tendency to gossip about kids that didn’t give offering and of course I didn’t want to be the object of their gossip. During Junior Worship, the other kids would giggle and snigger as other kids sang out of tune or in the wrong key, and as a result, I was so afraid to sing out of tune, that I would mouth the words to the songs instead of sing them out loud (Sometimes I still have to remind myself these days that I am singing for God and even if I sing out of tune, He still enjoys it!).
As time passed, I eventually got to know the ‘core’ group of kids better and through spending more time with them, I learnt how to ‘play church’. I learnt how to do and say all the right things. I would hear some of them make judgmental comments about others and make mental notes to myself not to do what that other person had just done. Learn your memory verses, come to church every week, sing in tune, put a coin in the offering bag every week. I had it all under control.
I think it was during my teenage years that I realised the hold that the fear of man had on me. It had affected my friendships, my sense of self, my testimony, my service to and even my relationship with God. Though I knew that God’s love for me was unconditional, I never realised that my understanding of His love for me was diminished by my fear of man. It was through an
audio sermon on Proverbs 29:25 (The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.) that I realised how much I feared man and in comparison, how little I feared God.
By God’s grace, at about the same time, God started putting people in my life who were great examples of people who really loved God and who had a genuine relationship with God. I could see it in the way they worshiped, prayed, and talked about God. They didn’t care about what other people thought, they were more concerned with what God thought. I really thank God for bringing these people into my life because it helped me realise that a deeper relationship with God is what I lacked, and I subsequently started to desire this more and more. I started getting more involved in Church. I started evangelising, leading care groups, doing Bible study, reading more Christian books, attending prayer meeting, having true fellowship with brothers and sisters, teaching Sunday School and really delighting myself in the Lord. The more involved I got with things I never thought I could get involved with, the more I realised how the fear of man really brought a snare in my life. Service was enjoyable and I wanted so much for others to get involved more in church too. Most of all, I actually started ENJOYING church! And I even sought out more opportunities to spend time with people in church too. Gone were the days of bugging my parents to take me home from church, now they started saying stuff about how much time I was spending in church!
Though it sounds all very happy and joyful, I should also mention that discouragement came on a regular basis. A few years ago, there was a period of discouragement that knocked the joy out of my service to God. I think at the time, I had just started work, and for various reasons, priorities changed and my world became a darker place. I still kept serving, but the whole time I felt like a massive hypocrite because I knew that my “spirituality” on the outside was a farce. I stopped singing in church because it felt wrong to sing when I was feeling the way I did. I still fellowshipped with other believers, but I was more interested in talking about things in the world than the things of God. Eventually, people started to notice and became concerned for me. I remember one time in particular that two sisters said to me ‘Hey, we’re praying for you OK’ and though I graciously accepted their kindness at the time, I was saying to myself how dare you say you will pray for me. That’s the kind of heart I had at the time – it wasn’t pretty. I knew it, but I think I was just too proud to do anything about it.
However, God heard their prayers and anyone else’s who were praying for me. Not long after that incident, God prompted me to do something that would impact me significantly. After having a bit of a pity party about how much I had allowed myself to change, I wrote a list of all the things I had done against God – all the things I had thought, said and done in the past few months that have angered and upset Him. And then I wrote a list of all the ways that He had responded to me. As I realised the gap between my list of terrible things, and His list of undeserved grace, love and forgiveness toward me, I repented and he truly brought me back to Him. I had a bit of a cry, I thanked God for His perseverance toward me, and I returned to serve Him – this time with a renewed heart full of gratitude and with the knowledge that the God that I serve is One who will always love me and will continue to change me into the woman He wants me to be – He is after all the author and finisher of my faith.
I guess from all of this it has taught me that the more we know who God is, and the extent of His love toward us, the more we will serve Him with all of our heart. He doesn’t deserve any less, but at the same time, when we serve Him with all of our heart, we will experience true blessings from Him and more of His grace to help us to do even greater things for Him. I hope what I have shared was an encouragement to you. May we all continue to serve God with our whole heart and encourage each other to do the same!
It’s been a while since the last post, but I have been busy busy busy with camp preparation, camp itself, social engagements, work, playing host to interstate campers and preparing for my holiday this week. What a crazy time of the year. Camp was an amazing blessing. The year of preparation was well worth every second and every effort. Though there were times where I was tempted to believe that the labour was in vain, I again learned how much more I need to trust in my ever-faithful God. He truly blessed the camp, and I believe most campers have been impacted deeply in their spiritual walk.
