A Devestating Release


1. To lay waste; render desolate
2: To overwhelm

It is a fair statement that when Jesus Christ to a hold of my life, He devastated me. What I have written about my life bears repeating. My life was in utter shambles. I was living only for myself, despite having a fiancé and two children. Drugs, depression and despondency were the rulers of my life.

It also bears repeating the action that caused me to turn my life over to Jesus. I was in a Catholic church (I was a Catholic in name only) because something had led me there. The priest, in an uncommon sermon, was talking about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. My prayer after his sermon, thought with a faith much smaller than a mustard seed, was; “Ok Lord, if You think You can do better with my life than I have, go ahead. I’ll take all those fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5.22-23). I especially needed an extra dose of faithfulness and self-control.

That was it. There was no rejoicing (that I could see). There was no party (on earth). I just happened to surrender my life to someone who would totally transform me forever and ever Amen.

So, here I am, seven and a half years later. A Christian who at best feels lukewarm most days. I continually ask myself and others, what am I doing wrong? What can I do to make things better? In no particular order I have attempted to-pray more, repent more, give more, avoid more, read more, and listen to worship music more. Every said attempt lasts for a little while and then I return back to the place I was.

My best friend told me that she struggles sometimes and God reminds her to, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46.10) My response, How still do I need to be?

See, my life has been such that I have needed to do things if I wanted to succeed in life. If I wanted to make it to college, I had to push myself. If I wanted a career, I had to make things happen. If I wanted to get off hard drugs, I had to stop. Life was not a spectator sport for me, and thus, neither should be the act of being a better Christian.

Having these thoughts for a while now, I attended a class on “Freedom in Christ.” It is a program designed to break all of the strongholds and lies a person has learned or believed and essentially re-program their lives in a new direction.

There are seven steps. They consist of removing any non-Christian spiritual experiences, learning truth from deception, forgiving, submitting, breaking bondage, being humble rather than prideful and breaking ancestral bondage.

Now, I am in no way discrediting this method of ‘freedom.’ I know that it has worked for many, many people and it breaks chains that people have been carrying around with them their whole lives.

However, for me, it would be another way of attempting to control my relationship with Jesus Christ. I already struggle with trying to get Him to love me more, and these would amount to being a series of hoops to jump through in order to accomplish that goal. I would be ‘going through the motions,’ hoping that the end result would be a better, more fulfilling relationship with God.

I left the seminar with my head in shambles. These were the reasons I was failing at Christianity. These were the reason I felt held in place. I could do something about it!

Oh, so wrong. Sure, there are probably some things that I need to repent of, some spiritual skeletons that need to be aired out. But if I have truly turned my life over to Christ, will He not help with that in His good time if I simply ask for His help? That is what I have been loathe to do.

It all became clearer to me when my friend showed me a video. It is by the author of a book entitled, “TrueFaced.” I had read the book several years ago, but apparently I had not been ready for that truth then. I am now.

In the book and video he speaks of two rooms, The Room of Good Intentions and The Room of Grace. The names should explain what they hold. Good Intentions has the people that are like I was, constantly striving to put on a good face for Jesus, to always promise Him that we’ll try harder. Grace was the room where we realize that we are sinners in need of help, but realizing that God loved us when He sought us, and that we need only to make the effort of resting in His love and pleasure in us and trusting Him to work on our sin together.

Since I have been devastated by Jesus so many years ago, I have wanted to make Him proud of me and worthy of the name He gave to me. I failed to realize that He has taken me as is. The enemy has tried to devastate me by believing I could never be good enough to warrant Jesus’ love as is.

So, as in all things, I have a choice. To continue with my personal status quo-spinning in ever-widening circles trying to get closer to a God who is already here, or falling into His arms and trusting that we can get through all of this together.

‘How still’ is still enough to feel Him all around me and coursing through my veins and realizing that He trusts me with His name because He made me and He will not let me fail. I can force myself to fail, but in Him, I cannot. He trusts me with His name because He’s crazy about me. If He can trust me with His name, can I not trust Him with our relationship?

Paul could not lovingly admonish me any better:

“Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?” Galatians 3.2-5