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Print Rock bottom for me was actually a third-floor balcony. The enemy had convinced me that I really didn’t have a place in God—though I believed the doctrine, a deeper relationship with God seemed like something I would only hope to achieve. I would see others grow spiritually, but I was frustrated with my stagnation and had no idea where to begin. I didn’t think God was paying any attention to me, and that what I felt or cared about didn’t matter to Him. He had better things to do, like feed the hungry in Third World countries. “Reporting live from the bottom of life’s barrel, it’s me. Are you listening, God?” You can watch someone else lose her faith and direction and tell yourself it can’t happen to you. I was raised in church, had family in the ministry, was involved at my church, went to Bible college for four years—shouldn’t I have been immune? The enemy used all of those things to make me feel worse. I was ashamed that I had such little faith and fight in me because it wasn’t supposed to happen to someone like me. I knew all the things the Bible said about trusting and strength. Rather, I knew it in my head. I didn’t know it in my heart. Back to the balcony. I had just walked out of church. More specifically, from pre-service prayer. Once again, I had been begging the Lord to make me feel something. He was touching everyone around me, and I was feeling neglected and tired of fighting to catch up to what He was doing in everyone’s life. I thought to myself, “I can be just as miserable sitting at home in my apartment as I am on this pew,” and out I went. It was that easy. I went home and sat on my balcony for three hours in the fall weather, sobbing. I cried for what I didn’t feel. I cried because I felt so worthless. I cried because I wasn’t sure if I’d ever set foot in the church again. And I cried because I had gotten to this dangerous place so easily. After three or four days of numbness, I made the phone call that probably changed my life. I called one of our church’s prayer pastors and asked her to meet with me. I walked into the meeting broken and intimidated. An hour later, I was still broken, but I had finally figured out that God cared. It finally felt personal. He had been watching me on that balcony wishing I would see the big picture. I do a few things differently now. For one, I practice praying the Word. Not just reading it aloud, but calling those things I read into my life and thanking Him for the things I read about. I am also accountable to several people, ones I know will certainly not let me find my way back to that balcony. Probably the most significant thing is that I am now taking a Bible study. Ironic that a Bible college student is now taking a Bible study, isn’t it? It’s on the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is found throughout the Bible and is inescapable if you want to have relationship with the Lord. I had heard of it before I started these lessons, but I didn’t understand its importance. Now I put its place in my mind second only to salvation, and, as I have learned, you must have a measure of His fear in order to even acquire the Holy Ghost! Lack of fear is what led me to that balcony. More than any other piece of information I’ve encountered, this new addition to my life demands application. It has affected everything I do, from the way I think and act, to the way I treat people. I want to share what I’ve learned about the fear of the Lord because it changes you; the growth that follows is so much more than you could hope for. However, I also want to share it as a person who is still growing. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m getting to know the One who does. One of the scriptures I pray each night says this, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). Once I realized that He wanted to have a relationship with me, I suddenly could not resist wanting to know Him more. Since you cannot separate the book from its author, the best way to figure Him out is to dig in the Word. In turn, He keeps showing me things about Himself. A lot of what I see makes me realize how far I have to go, but I knew that when I started. And much to my amazement, so did He. He chose to die for a person who was weak, flawed, and sometimes disappointing. I don’t understand a love like that, but I want to now.
ninetyandnine.com © 2004, Shana Blunt --------- Shana Blunt is working on turning her Bible study lessons into a series for ninetyandnine.com. If she had free time, she wouldn’t know what to do with it. |
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