Wednesday, June 01, 2005

doubts erased

When my faith finally became my own, my discouragement would sometimes be strong enough to cause me to desire to quit. I would think about ignoring everything I had recently learned, really heavy stuff like the assurance of my salvation, how Jesus is the only way to God, and the fact that a lot of people that think they are Christians ... are really not. I started to think that maybe this "junk" i was learning wasn't actually true. I thought about my ignorant life before I knew these life-changing "truths," and wondered if I could go back to it. It didn't seem so bad at times, just living my life for myself, answering to no one. That's what everyone told me college was about, it seemed to fit. At times, I was very tempted to take everything I had just learned, give it all back and say "I don't want it."

The worst part was, I personally didn't feel guilty for thinking these things. I knew that if I really wanted to "get out," the quicker I did the faster I would forget everything.

What kept me from throwing this away was the fact that I wouldn't just be discarding something important, I'd be throwing away the only thing I needed. The kicker was that God knew I had learned these truths, and rejected Jesus anyway. I had made the one decision everyone must make; follow Jesus with everything you've got or full-out reject him. I knew turning away from that decision was HUGE. It would be the biggest turning point in my life. I couldn't deal with that. How would God feel if I knew I needed Jesus, if I believed I needed him, if I knew deep inside I wanted him, but discarded him like a banana peel?

That moment was when I knew everything would work out: I wasn't thinking of myself, my family, my old or new friends. I was worried that God would be disappointed in me. And that was something I did not ever want.