Being a Christian is one of the only certainties in my life. I’m a thinker, a questioner, and my mind is rarely settled. I wonder and I worry and I ponder, rarely satisfied with the realities of life. I struggle to understand how some people don’t think deeply about issues. How do you not wonder if something is right or wrong? How do you not feel overwhelming compassion or empathy when faced with the struggles people are going through around the world — or in your back yard?
Some people are born with simpler minds. Writing this all out sounds conceited but that’s not what I mean it to be. My friend Tiffany and I often talk about this scenario — how we both feel the world so deeply, soaking up every issue with opinion and emotion. We read signals to their very core, fashioning deeper meaning behind the tone in someone’s voice, the length of a conversation, their choice of company. We are hyper sensitive to emotional wounds, philosophical points and the words and actions of those with whom we have relationships — friends and more so, boyfriends. Who are these people who are skip through the days unaffected, able to brush off a potentially hurtful comment or let an issue lie when they disagree? Or, god forbid, not care to have an opinion at all?
There’s a “depth factor” — I’ve got it. The degree of it varies but if you’ve got it, life is more raw. The lows are lower, the highs are higher, the beauty is more beautiful. For me, I think God uses it to help me see the world through His eyes. I don’t wish away this depth — that makes me hurt and love more fiercely than many others might. Because I like to be in life for that all that is — the heartbreaking, the silly and the awesome. I feel that I’ve been given a gift to fully experience life and though it sometimes makes things harder, it makes them real.
I started this blog post talking about my Christianity. In the midst of all this emotional and mental roller coastering, one thing remains: Jesus. I’ve distanced myself at times and tortured myself with guilt as well. I’ve rebelled and repented and God never leaves me. Of course Christianity is free will and it is my choice to have accepted His love and forgiveness. But he is my Father, and I’m lucky enough to have a Dad here on earth that emulates the character of God to me as a daughter as well.
All this is to say what? All that I am — with my neverending analyzing, self doubt, decisions good and bad — can be summed up as one thing: I am God’s child. To me own resistance, I’ve just joined two small group studies — 1 reading “The Pursuit of God”, the other reading the Bible in a year with our church. This means I’m churching it up like three times a week. I’ve felt fairly emotionless about God as of late and didn’t think my studies would change that but they have. I can feel God’s wisdom and truth filling up my soul every time I indulge His word or choose to read or consider something God ordained. I shouldn’t surprised but I am, and again, I’m in awe that it is these God realities that satisfy my thirst for life more than any other.
In “The Pursuit of God”, Tozer writes that “this intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and, to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul (as, for instance, infant baptism is though by some to do), but comes within the field of awareness where the man can “know” it as he knows any other fact of experience.“
I know God because I’ve experienced God. It is a fact of my experience. I am deep, I am emotional and dramatic and easily provoked. I’m passionate and sinful and often confused — especially when it comes to relationships. But I am God’s child and my identity is secure in Him no matter what else happens. That’s the one thing I am certain of.
