Posts Tagged: life is messy
“Happy Birthday, Spiritual Self!
Thursday, January 24, 2019
“You must be born again.” (Jesus Christ, to Nicodemus, a religious leader who needed to start over)
It was January 24, 1976 when I realized that I was lost. Well, I wasn’t exactly lost. I just didn’t know where I had been, where I was going, or where I was. Other than that, I was in pretty good shape.
I would like to tell you that I cried out to God in my despair. However, the truth is that I only had the emotional energy to whimper. Fortunately our multilingual God understands the language of whimper.
I would also like to tell you that, once I had invited Jesus into my heart and life, my life was never the same. The truth is much messier. The truth is that I have had to come to terms with a terrible addiction since that day. The truth is that I still struggle daily with my runaway mind and heart. The turning point in a war doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of battles still to be fought.
Still, these celebratory moments are good. It is good to pause and consider how much love God has lavished upon me in the past forty-two years. It is good to remember that God has never let me down. I have let myself down repeatedly. I have let others down. Yes, I have had to repeatedly started over. There have been times when God seemed conspicuous by his absence.
Yet, while I have at times been a sorry believer, I have never been sorry that I am a believer.
And increasingly, I get it right. I am growing into a better man, the man I always longed to be , and thought I never would be.
So, happy spiritual birthday, self! And now, may you begin again!
By the way, you can also have a spiritual birthday. If you can’t cry out to God, at least whimper.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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