Had to Share

Every once in awhile during Bible study I will come across a paragraph or verse that makes me want to jump out of my seat and shout 'Amen!' This morning, I had one of those moments and I just had to share it. So here it is (marked like my book):

"I wrote my first Bible study about modern-day idols and called it, No Other Gods. One of the main characteristics of serving false gods is that we must constantly downgrade our expectations of them. We start with high hopes and dreams that a certain idol will deliver happiness, excitement, and well-being to our lives; but because a false god is false by its very nature, our expectation must continually be lowered until we're in total bondage to something that doesn't even resemble anything close to what we had originally hoped. But not so with one true God. With Him we find the opposite. The more we get to know Him, the more we trust and serve Him, the more our expectations ascend and our realities bloom."

And then I wrote three "Amen!"s in the margin.

One of the things that strikes me the most about my relationship with God is that I find the above paragraph to be true and my logical/atheistic flesh absolutely cannot explain it. How so?

I have unquestionably worshiped approval, achievement, beauty and success. All of which, at least to some degree, I have been successful in attaining. And the process of that attainment, has always left me feeling in bondage. Bondage to long hours of work, diets, tied to a mirror or the shopping mall, weighed down by the scale. Even during times of success, the debt looms large. Nothing is satisfying.

Yet, when I started worshiping God and following Jesus, I have found myself freer and freer. This worship has not asked unreasonable things from me. Nor has my belief disappointed me. In fact, the very opposite has proved true - I have gained more happiness, peace and contentment from the decision to worship Christ that I have from any other of my pursuits.

Now if there is no God, there is no explanation for this. This worship should look like all other earthy pursuit and ultimately fail to satisfy. In fact, because my worship would be entirely empty, it should prove fruitless even more quickly than most false idols. How can you explain how belief in a non-existent god can transform more radically than belief in yourself? belief in tangible rewards? belief in accolades? belief in relationships?

The short answer for me, is that I can't. I can't explain me, who I am now, without God.

Love you all.