Being Available For God I realize now that I never truly understood what it meant to be “used by God” for something. Four years ago I gave my life to Christ and started my spiritual growth journey. My path so far has been like the stock market; ups and downs, but trending upward over time. Lately I am experiencing an upward spike in my past spiritual investments. I have had my eyes opened while walking through an unfortunate situation with someone who is becoming a good friend. “Becoming” being the key word. Let me explain:
Four years ago to the day, I was going through the same exact problem with the same exact results. Our circumstances, if they were any similar, would have seemed scripted. However, four years ago he was only an acquaintance and neither of us knew Christ.
God has worked a miracle in my life and it was only possible because I made myself vulnerable. I literally had to tell him “I give this huge freaking mess I’ve made to you.” I couldn’t control anything and I was losing the ability to think rationally and focus on what was important. My grandfather was urging me to find Jesus and I felt the need immediately to act. My mom had a co-worker that went to church in the area and she took me to a service there. From that point on, I started a spiritual mission that I had no idea was under a microscope by others who were not yet believers and just wanted to see “how it went” for me. My walk was completely dependent on me, but I was NOT alone. I had the help of other men who were in my shoes once before. They sacrificed their time to listen to me and counsel me. They helped me keep a straight path and taught me what it looked like to be a man of God.
As time passed I grew as a man. I surrounded myself with Godly men, served at church, prioritized my life according to scripture, and became a person I never knew I could be. I always say my wife is the biggest miracle that ever happened to me, but that’s not true. I realize now that the miracle was in my transformation. Without that, His future blessings would have simply passed me by. I would not have been capable of seeing God’s gifts without using the spiritual eyes He gave me.
Now I’m here. I’m helping a friend through a really tough time. I often pray for God to put the right words in my mouth or to put no words in my mouth at all. I just want to be flawless, but we all know that is unattainable. Instead, what is having the biggest impact on my friend is my availability to him and my past growth as a Christian. It has NOTHING to do with what I’m saying to him at any given time. It solely is based on the work God has already done in me. I couldn’t screw this up if I tried… it’s already done! He has used me to impact this man and it was only because I was available for God to do a work in me. My friend has watched me grow from afar for four years and now he is in the same EXACT situation. Now he is stepping into a new life in Christ and needs his circle of Godly men to walk with him. Still, we do not know each other that well which makes this seem so unfathomable. He is least familiar with me than anyone else in his extremely strong circle, but my testimony has given him hope. Now that he knows what God is capable of, we’re becoming good friends.
I can tell you that there are days I don’t read my bible. In fact, there are many days that I don’t. There are days when I just don’t feel spiritual at all. I think this is a battle everyone fights. It doesn’t mean God won’t use you. In my case, I needed to live my new life while progressing steadily in my faith until he called on my testimony to help out someone else. Now, my friend is the one being watched and I pray that one day he can experience the pure joy of being used by God!
Credit:Frank
0 comments:
Post a Comment