Being open to God’s way is better than ‘trying to get it right’

Abandon rationality - listen carefully to what God is really saying and let him strip away the layers to get at the real issues and deal with them. 

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I always wanted one of those clear-cut testimonies. You know the ones where someone has been to the brink of hell itself and God has changed their lives so radically that they never 'have any doubts' they never look back and have an amazing relationship with God. 

I am a third generation Christian and a pastor's kid. One October Sunday when I was 6, my dad was unwell so I went with my cousin to church. That day there was a visiting lady speaker who took the Sunday school. I can't remember what she talked about but at the end of her talk she gave an invite for anyone who wanted to 'give their heart to Jesus'. Those who did were asked to put their hands up and pray with her, and afterwards say ‘I belong to Jesus and He belongs to me’. I am an introvert and as I say a pastor's kid and so these factors very much kept my hand down. But I prayed along with the lady and everyone else said the words, afterwards I confessed to my cousin what I had done. It was something that I understood and wanted to do but felt convicted that I had not put my hand up and therefore I was not properly ‘saved’. I wanted to feel the amazing change in my life that everyone talked about however the more I doubted the more that everyone assured me that I was OK.

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There was a lot more talk about the second coming of Jesus in those days, and the trouble that awaited those who didn’t really know him at that time and this got me a little scared. To make matters worse it was about that time that someone introduced me to the scripture that says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would never be forgiven. You know what happens when someone tells you something like that as a child – yes - you believe you have done it. I can remember trying to go to sleep desperately without thinking ‘bad thoughts’ about the Holy Spirit and being dismayed at the result.

All of these things were compounded by me being a ‘thinker’ by nature. I could not accept anything without analysing it first (I still have difficulties in this area). So when it came to wanting an overwhelming experience with the Holy Spirit I just couldn't get to the right place – every little stray thought, the approach of those trying to help, the different theologies all got in the way leaving me confused and downcast.

I could say a lot more about this – but why share it at all you might say - it sounds negative. I think that I have been prompted to and maybe it might be because I suspect that I am not alone amongst pastor’s kids and those from families with a Christian heritage in finding it difficult to come to a place of reconciliation and assurance with God. What happened as a result of all this is I guess that I built up a protective wall of ideas, theories and theologies that in fact, far from getting me near to God became a wall to keep me away. My breakthroughs have come in part from discovering that for real:

Jesus really loves ME – His death on the cross was an offering for MY sin. He really wants a relationship with ME – He wants to walk day today with ME like He walked with Adam in the garden of Eden. He is NEVER going to do things my way even if ‘my way’ is theologically sound – whatever He does He will do His way and unless I am willing to humble myself and accept that I will get nothing. This is very hard for those of us who believe they know the ‘rightness’ of a thing. It may be right and it may be scriptural but it is possibly and even probably that it is not the thing that we need to hold on to at this moment, if all we feel is frustration and hardness of heart. Abandon rationality - listen carefully to what God is really saying and let him strip away the layers to get at the real issues and deal with them. Psalm 139:23 ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts’. Yes it’s very tough but when He is finished the result is to be overwhelmed with love for Him and all He is. In that place He fulfils our deepest desires and outdoes all our expectations.

1 Corinthians 2:12 ‘That we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us’.

Author: Chris Pearson

May God bless and enrich your life

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