Sorry Guys its Been A Loooooong While
My Calling
Growing up I had always struggled with deciding what I wanted to do when I “grew up.” A person’s life purpose is often hard to define and even harder to find. My dreams were lost in the mixed-up nothingness that my life used to be. I was not a believer in the whole “epiphany” experience, but I soon became an advocate. It was not until two years ago at summer camp that I developed my dream to do something.
Many people, I come across, tend to have these epiphany experiences when they are on some sort of high. Growing up in the church I found the “highs” to be of the spiritual sort. Whether fake or real, these highs never seemed to rock anyones world. The “epiphany” experience, because of hypocrites at the church, became an action that I saw farced and pushed, in many cases I would even go along with the crowd and have one too. In those moments I was caught playing church, playing my life to be what others formed it to be. It went far enough that it even affected what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. That was, until that fateful week of church camp.
Again, prior to that defining moment I had flip-flopped on what I wanted to do: I had moved from professional basketball player, to lawyer, to doctor, to etc., etc. Based solely on the fact that it was what other people wither wanted me to do, or the potential that they saw in me. Summer camp redefined the way looked at my life forever. At this summer camp I struggled with the subject of what I needed to do with my life and how God was going to use me to further His Kingdom, because I had an epiphany one night! I realized that it was nothing that anyone else could say or do, but my God given talents and personality that defined me and what is best for me. Needless to say, became a believer in the process of epiphany. The conclusion that I made during my time at camp was that until I let go of everything I held to myself in life; other peoples desires and my “people pleasing” attitude, needed to be handed over to the Lord. I have never been good at letting go.
Letting go became harder for me when my parents got a divorce. It was ultimately my dad and mom that crumbled under pressure. He was a pastor, she is a chaplain at a hospital; the spiritual-put-together sort. I grew up a pastor’s kid, I saw the stress related to the vocation, the stress put on the family was too close. So the stress, mixed with neglect, to our Heavenly Father, tore our family in two. My dad and my mom got a divorce when I was fifteen (a freshman in high school). Until that eventful summer I had ran from the possibility of becoming a vehicle in which God could deliver His Word to the people of this depraved world, because of everything I had seen. The fact that my family was torn apart by sheer stress is a daunting thing, and to come to grips with the fact that, the very thing that stressed by family apart is what I am supposed to do for the rest of my life, is unnaturally awesome. I realize that with God’s omnipotent strength behind me everything is going to be alright, and nothing is impossible!
During that summer, that I keep pointing towards, I finally came to the said “grips” of the sheer awesomeness of God, and I do not use that word lightly; truly AWESOME. It is one of those words like Love, amazing, or Great, that we as humans have grown to just throw around and use to describe food, a person, or something else that in all relativity, is nothing of the sort. God in truthfulness was someone I kept in my back pocket, and pulled out whenever I needed Him. Over this summer camp I grew afraid of Him, not in a horror film sort of way, but in a way where I was afraid to let him down. Aforementioned to this camp I was concerned with letting other people down and pleasing them, because of a fear of being rejected. I had been putting the interest of my life, my focus, on people here on earth! I was giving my worship to the creation instead of the Creator?!? To me, now, that seems like insanity. God revealed His purpose for my life: to let other people know this God, the One who is “awesome” enough and “great” enough for our total sacrifice and worship.
That is why I’m here at North Greenville University, to train and become someone that He may use to further His Kingdom. It is now His dream for me that I am seeking, not my own; His life that I am following, not my own. He can work in any way He wants to and does. Even if it is not the way I would like him to. Now that I’m “all-grown-up” I know that I just have to stay on the path that he made for me, and His glorious plans will be revealed to me.
This blogs scripture was too long to put directly on here: Isaiah 41:1-14; tell me your conclusions drawn from it!
Praise Elon!!!! (Another Name for God [our God] that I Found Recently [I like it])
