Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Testimonies.

I've struggled with my testimony for years. Not because I thought it was too big or too much to handle, but because I thought it was too small. I can count the amount of people I've shared my full testimony with on one hand (i.e. three...) and half of that is because I have a really hard trusting people with myself fully. But the other half is that honestly, even though I've struggled with all kinds of sin in all areas, I just haven't felt in the past that my "I was raised in a Christian home and accepted Jesus at 4 years old" testimony measured up to those who had been redeemed out of a LIFETIME of sin.

Mine just isn't as powerful a testimony. BUT.

I had breakfast two mornings ago with a dear and precious friend, one who knows me a little better than most. And we were swapping pieces of our stories, and it got me thinking.

We place so much value on testimonies that can go on stage and move people to tears. Stories of people who wandered in darkness for years and years before God reached down and saved them, and we applaud how great of a God that we have that He could save fallen people from being fallen people. But isn't that just it? Fallen people who were doing all they knew how to do...be fallen people. Depraved. Broken. Completely unaware of the healing, overwhelming, all encompassing redemptive power of a love soaked Gospel. And God saved them from that. As a testament to His power.

But how much MORE of a testament is it to God's love to say "I've known Jesus all my life. I know that He loves me. I know that He died for me. But I continue to choose my sin over and over again because I'm selfish, and would rather have what I want that surrender my will to the Father. And HE STILL LOVES ME."

Maybe I'm not making sense. And I'm not bashing on those powerful testimonies, because I have seen them move and it is AMAZING. I guess I'm just encouraging people not to feel inferior because God has given them a testimony that starts with "I've been going to church all my life, and I've never struggled with [blank]."

Because while one is a testimony of God's power to bring life from death, your testimony is a living, breathing story of a love SO FAITHFUL and SO PERFECT, He continues to redeem a broken heart that rejects Him time and time again for insignificant things that don't even BEGIN to matter in eternity.

And I think that is powerful indeed.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Immeasurably MORE.

I wasn't sure what to title this blog. I didn't write a post to sum up 2012, not because I was lazy but because I was overwhelmed in Atlanta, Georgia by the amount of old friends I was able to spend my New Year's with :D

I spent my New Years at the Passion 2013 conference, with 64,999 other people praising our Savior. I don't know HOW to sum up the experience, so I'm going to try and do it with a somewhat out there analogy-like thing. So here goes.

The very first session Louis Giglio spoke. Now, because there's 65,000 of us in the Georgia Dome he was obviously miked up and thrown up on the massive screens so that everyone could both see and hear him. So if you were watching the screens and just listening (which I was) it seemed as if Louis Giglio was this massive, overwhelming presence slowly spreading through the Dome. But I took a second to look down (honestly it was because I was crying) and saw the stage....and all Louis Giglio consisted of was this tiny, tiny, TINY little man in a corner of the stage, totally reliant on the microphone and screens to spread his message out to the rest of us. And it got me thinking.

THIS is what I learned at Passion 2013. We are just tiny, tiny, TINY little humans running around in the shadow of an omnipotent, powerful, HUGE God, completely and totally reliant upon Him and ONLY Him to spread our story of His glory to the rest of the world. Just like Louis would have been unable to speak without the screen and microphone, we are unable to bring about anything without Jesus. Our God is overwhelmingly powerful, and overwhelmingly BIG! He is IMMEASURABLY more than our wildest dreams.

Which leads to Bethany sitting in family group, shaking, unable to sit still, because I've never understood just how much I CAN'T understand just how much our God is. Spiritual high, shaky tears, and the absolute inability to talk :D

I am blessed beyond belief, and I got to experience all this sitting beside some of my BEST friends. God is bringing change, and we're going to be a part of it. Praise Him.