Salvation

One of the biggest difficulties I have as a Christian is sharing my faith with nonbelievers. I know I'm supposed to. I know that bringing people to Christ is really the biggest, most important thing we can do in our lives. But I just can't do it. I can't do it because I understand. I was there. I was a nonbeliever for several years of my life and I get it. I wasn't brought back to my faith through anyone's testimony. I was brought back to faith because I was at rock bottom and it was Jesus who pulled me out. The life that has followed that prayer continues to be full of valleys and mountains and sticky suffocating mud. But through each season, God is incredibly present. But His presence in MY life doesn't fix the hurt and questions in someone else's life. And I get that. So I tend to stay quiet. Fighting my own vices and battles and sins. Hoping that Good peaks out when it should. 

And then I had kids. The panic of raising Warriors for God is overwhelming at times. I asked Christ into my life at 6 years old. Not because I truly understood what I was asking, but because I went to a Baptist Church that gave you a toy when you walked down that aisle to kneel. My friend got a toy. It looked awesome and by golly, I wanted one too. It wasn't until I was 25 and praying at that stop light that I truly asked God into my life. That I understood I wasn't asking some white haired ghostly figure into my "heart," but rather I was asking Jesus Christ, the One who loves me more than anyone else, the One who created me in my mother's womb, the One who knows my beginning, middle and end, the One who never turned against me even when I pushed him away- I was asking Him into my LIFE. To walk with me each day. To show me a new path. To guide me and help me. I was asking for a new difficult life, but one I wouldn't need to walk alone. 

But that initial experience when I was 6 and the questions and doubts I had growing up led me to stay quiet in regards to Salvation in my home. We pray. We read the Bible. We go to church. I certainly want them to ask Christ into their lives, but I didn't want it to be for the wrong reasons and I had my doubts that it's something a child truly understands. 

So tonight Isaac brought me his Action Bible to read at bedtime. I told him he could choose a PART of the Bible and I would be happy to read it. He chose Revelations. So I read it to him and at the end there was a part about Jesus knocking on your door and asking you to let him in. He said, "Yeah, but no one's knocked on our door!" And then the words came. The words I was so scared would never come to me. The words I didn't have before. They were there. And I was reminded of a verse I read earlier this week in Matthew. Jesus was speaking to the disciples and said to them: 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. I told Isaac how God created him and has a very special plan just for him. I explained that God wants a relationship with him. That God wants him to turn to Him when he's sad or angry or scared and He wants to know everything going on in his life. I told him how, when you have a relationship with God, you have a desire to know Him more and to learn more about all that He's done. But you have to ask him into your life. He's knocking, but it's up to you to answer. Isaac said, "Yeah, but one time I prayed to God to give me a lab." I explained that asking God into your life doesn't mean you get what YOU want. It means you get what GOD wants. I told him that God's plan is always bigger and better than our own. I told him that I was planning on getting married, having 1 child and being a teacher forever. But instead I got to have Jared and Grayson and Katie too! Now I work from home so I can be with them more. God's plan was bigger and so much better. I told him that God may decide that a lab is something he is meant to have later. He may decide that he's not supposed to have a lab because he's going to have something better instead. We don't know. All we know is that God wants what is best to glorify Him. Always. 

We left it at that and I read a Christmas book someone else had chosen. Then it was bedtime and Isaac started his prayers his usual way. But then he said, "And God, please come in my heart and into my life. Help me to be brave and not scared." He said something else but I was crying. Because there are no toys. There are no promises. There's just a young boy who heard God knocking and he decided to open the door. I am forever grateful to my Heavenly Father for showing me again and again that all things are possible through Him. I am forever grateful that He can work past my own doubts and fears and insecurities to grab hold of the heart he desires. I have no doubts that my other 3 children will hear the knocking of Christ when it is their time. I am so incredibly grateful that God's plan is bigger and so much better than my own. 

Ephesians 1:3-13

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.