My Faith Story

I might have done this a while ago, but I think it's good to keep our own faith stories fresh in our minds so that we remember where we came from and what God has saved us from.            

Growing up, I was what I’ve recently heard referred to as a “Chreaster”, meaning we only went to church on Christmas and Easter. Occasionally, I would go to church with my Grandma or Grandpa and attend Sunday School, but I wasn’t really exposed to the gospel a whole lot. To me, being a Christian just meant that you believed in God. I celebrated the major holidays; what more do you want?

            

My mom’s oldest sister and her family are all born again believers though, and when I was younger, I used to fly down to Arizona for a week to visit them. Little did I know at the time that my Aunt Kathie would arrange it so that the week I visited them fell on the same week as their church’s VBS. When I was eight, on one of these visits, my oldest cousin Jason sat down and shared the gospel with me. “You could walk outside and get hit by a car and die tomorrow,” he told me. “You don’t know.” I’m not sure I really gave it much thought beyond, “I don’t want to go to hell when I die,” and so I prayed the prayer I think more as an insurance policy than anything else. I had no idea what it meant to be a follower of Jesus anymore than I fully understood what it meant to be “saved”.

            

So I returned home to Minnesota with the new Bible my Aunt had bought me, but there wasn’t anybody there who could help me grow in my walk with Christ. I attended church off and on, but I was only 8 or 9 and obviously couldn’t drive myself there. Over the years, I tried to get into reading the Bible and on occasion my Dad would take me to the church he worked at, but as much as I wanted to pursue God, I just couldn’t figure out how. It wasn’t until I got to Drake that I began walking with Christ, getting into the fellowship and learning who God is.

            

Looking back on that time growing up, however, I’ve realized that God protected me from a lot of things that I could have gotten involved in; things that a lot of my friends got involved in. I never had even the smallest desire to drink alcohol (still don’t, actually), do drugs, get in the party scene, etc. I used to think that because I was such a “good girl” growing up, my God story wasn’t worth telling. I didn’t go through some dramatic change in my life after coming to know the Lord; my story isn’t as “good” or compelling as someone who was addicted to drugs one day and then is completely clean as soon as they give their life over to Jesus. But I’ve also come to realize that I do have a story to tell and God has worked in my life as much as He has anyone else’s.

            

I wouldn’t claim to have this all figured out, though. I struggle daily to understand what it means to truly follow Jesus; to not follow what the world is doing or saying, to live a life that’s pleasing to Him. Some times I feel like a total failure and I wish I could just start over. It’s usually in those times that I think I’ve forgotten what grace is and that God gives it to me in abundance. I fear rejection because I experienced so much of it as a child and so I worry too much about what people think of me, and then I end up not taking the opportunities God gives me to share even a small nugget of Truth with them.

            

Recently, I started questioning my own faith as a result of this and a message given during the gospel of Mark series. “If you’re really following Christ, you should be making disciples.” I’ve never discipled anyone. I’m not even sure I was discipled myself, to be honest. I can pretty much count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone through the gospel with someone. And so I started asking and doubting if my faith was really real. Have I just been fooling myself and everybody else all this time? Do I really believe this? And somehow that even led to questioning God’s goodness to the point where I couldn’t even sing during worship at church on Saturday nights. I would just stand back in the booth and cry because I hated how I was feeling and I hated that I was doubting God.

            

It was a conversation I had with one of the women in my small group about conviction versus condemnation that I began to see that I was believing lies. I had been feeling condemned and that doesn’t come from God. Guilt is from Satan. Romans 8 says that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Conviction, however, does come from the Spirit and I have definitely been convicted. But I am not guilty. I think it was this conversation and the subsequent PTL conference on sowing that I started to believe in the goodness of God again. Every worship song, every message, it all spoke straight to my heart like it was meant for me to hear.

            

Does God want me make disciples? Of course! He commands it. Will I still get to heaven if I don’t? Again, of course. I am washed by the blood of the Lamb! But do I want to get there by the skin of my teeth? No; I want to store up for myself treasures in heaven, keeping my eyes fixed on eternity. Because whatever is holding me back here from sharing the love of Christ with people is worth far less than what I have waiting for me there!