Personal Testimony

I was recently asked to share a personal testimony on the other blog for which I write (http://livingascalled.blogspot.com/ - the blog for the singles ministry at Riverbend Community Church). With my recent posts here on having a troubled mind and how our sins are often initiated by dark and distressing thoughts, I wanted to share here how God has granted me understanding of this in my own life:

I grew up in a home where I was taught much about God, Jesus and His death on the cross and the work of the Church. I had very caring grandparents who instilled much of God’s Word into my life. My parents were committed to a local church and sent me to a good Christian school. After seeing my sister be saved and hearing her admonishments to me to seek God for repentance, I began to understand my sin in a personal way. As my parents and teachers pointed me to God’s Word, I came to know of God’s provision of sacrifice in His Son. It was then that I confessed my sin and prayed for Christ to be my Savior.

Looking back on my junior high and high school years, I see the fruits of my salvation, both in the actions I had, as well as the desires and motivations of my heart. However, my understanding of God’s authority and sovereignty was very limited. I did not attend a church like the one I attend now. The Christian school I attended was very casual in terms of theology, and focused more on the rigidities of the Law, mostly by having many rules and expectations that were required of students, but lacking the foundation of Christ as the motivation for obedience. I did not understand the character of God or the deep mysteries of His Word.

When I look back on these years of growing up, I see God’s faithfulness in growing me through the limited understanding I had of His Word, as well as through the means of the Christian people around me who encouraged me in my faith. I see now that one of my greatest temptations was failing to maintain a mind that was self-controlled and set upon Christ. My emotions were easily swayed by the circumstances around me, and I know now that this can probably be attributed to a weak understanding of God’s providence and sovereignty over all things. I would cling to Him and His Word in difficult days, but this was always coupled with discouraging thoughts and accusations against God for allowing such trials. In essence, I was conflicted by the emotional fluctuations of a sinful heart.

When I graduated high school, in my immature faith, I chose to follow the ways of this world for a season. I rebelled against most of what I had been taught. It began “innocently,” with a rekindled childhood friendship. I began to spend more and more time with worldly friends. I soon even pursued a dating relationship with a young man who was not a believer. This man had absolutely no interest in things of the Lord, but yet praised me for my “good” behavior. During this time, I slowly began to move away from the church, oftentimes lied to my parents, and further distanced myself from the ways of righteousness I had once engaged in.

There is one distinct thing I remember about this wayward season of my youth: my conscience was deeply troubled. When I would come home from being out with my friends, and after sneaking quietly up to my room, my thoughts were tormented by the knowledge of how I was disobeying all that I knew to be true about God and His Word. I was miserable and filled with guilt. In God’s gracious mercy, He soon caused this young man to break off our relationship – abruptly and painfully. I was devastated! I spent weeks grieving this loss and even sought out ways to win him back. My entire world had become defined by this relationship.

But in God’s sweet providence, He had orchestrated this event as a turning point. He only allows His children to go so far in their sin, and thankfully, He did not leave me to myself. He rescued me from my sin and restored me unto Himself. He left me with nowhere to turn but back to Him. I started attending a new church in the area where I was introduced to God’s sovereignty, the teachings of Calvinism, and began to hear theological teaching like I had never been exposed to before. These truths brought great comfort and assurance to my mind and heart.

A couple of years later, the Lord moved my family to Florida very unexpectedly to care for my dying grandfather. This was one of the most pivotal events of my life and has come to be remembered as one of the most precious. It is here where God has taught me what it means to be a Biblical woman. Through the means of Riverbend Community Church, I have learned (and am definitely still learning!) what God’s Word has to say about authority and submission, manhood and womanhood, service in the church, practicing the “one another’s” of the Bible, pursuing Biblically-informed emotions, discipling and mentoring younger believers, caring for the weak, coming to love and value the call to singleness (for however long that may be) and gaining a scripturally sound view of my own sinfulness.

It is here that I have learned to study my heart – to recognize the evil and deceitful machinations that are always at work in it. It has brought many days of discouragement, frustration, sorrow, and confusion. But most importantly, it has brought days of gratitude – for it is God’s proven faithfulness to restore me in the midst of revealed sin and the consequent repentance that comes with it. I have learned things I never would have learned had I stayed in the places I once was.

One of my greatest sinful tendencies is to be controlled and even paralyzed by what others think of me, to the point that my imagination runs uncontrolled. These sinful emotional struggles have been revealed and refined (and continue to be) by the means of the leadership and friendships God has blessed me with throughout my years at Riverbend. It has been God’s particular goodness and mercy upon my life to bring me here for this season. I have done nothing to earn this goodness, and I am amazed by His abundant provisions. My life’s ambition is to please God, and I want to do this by learning how to live out His Word.

“…Set the believers an example if speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching…Practice these things, immerse yourself I them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (I Timothy 4:6-16)