Lately I have been thinking of all the things that have happened since I first came to Fountainview. It's really quite amazing to see how God has led in the past year and a few months. I have made great friends, traveled to many new places (my favorite being Hawaii, of course ;D) learned a lot about myself and more specifically myself in relation to God.
I was raised in a Christian home, Baptist until I was 12 or so, and then converting to Seventh-Day Adventist Christians. My parents are both quite young, but they have always done their best to make my sisters and me successful. A big part of their best included making sure we had chores and yard work to do, and the occasional "attitude adjustment" when we did things that we weren't supposed to or didn't do the things we were supposed to.
Even growing up in a Christian home though, I never had a relationship with God until I came to Fountainview. I'd never even heard of such an idea. My lack of a relationship with God had nothing to do with my parents, so it wasn't necessarily coming away from home that changed things. I guess coming to Fountainview, I saw a lot of other kids my age that really did love Jesus.
This whole idea of Jesus being our "Friend" is still kind of a foreign concept for me, but its a cool thought. I mean, Jesus was a friend to His disciples, right? Why is that? What did He do with Him that He can't do with us? He walked with them, talked with them, laughed with them and helped them through the hard times. He can do all of that with us too!
A big part of our friendship with Him that is different than the disciples is that we can't physically see Jesus. That makes it harder, doesn't it? I heard a David Asscherick sermon last night that made a lot of sense though. The illustration that he used was really cool. Your sitting at a restaurant with your friend and you are going on and on about how great the pasta is, and your friend turns to you and says, "Dude, there is no pasta." The pasta is either there or it isn't. God is either there... Or He isn't. This fact doesn't change from person to person based on if they believe in Him. How do we know He is though?
I can know that God is there because of 3 things: the way He brought me to Fountainview, the way He's answered my prayers, and through things He's convicted me on.
I came to Fountainview half way through my first semester of 11th grade year. I was talking to my friend Morgan about my public school and telling her about funny differences between my new school and the Christian school I had been attending before. "Yeah, guess what I saw for the first time ever the other day! WEED! REAL WEED! HAHAHA!" so on and so forth. Needless to say, she got a bit worried about me and decided to try and get me out of MCHS. She got with my other friend Randy and they started praying that if God wanted me at Fountainview he'd work it all out. They went to talk to the VP of student life and she said that the 3 girls that had the 3 available spots in the dorm had pulled out just that morning! Morgan and Randy knew that finances would be another big thing, so they got with the VP again and within 24 hours they had a sponsor for me willing to pay the whole school year's tuition. They called me at about 11pm eastern time and told me that I was free to get on a plane any day now, and explained that with all of these crazy miracles that it must be God's will for me to come to Fountainview. I saw how much Morgan changed during her time at Fountainview, and I decided that I really wanted that change for myself. She stopped gossiping, started talking about spiritual things, started being nicer. With that said, three weeks later I was on a plane to Seattle on my way to Fountainview Academy in British Columbia, Canada.
Another way that I know God is there is because He answers my prayers. One big way He has answered my prayers was during a particular "low" in my spiritual life. Right before Christmas break last year I decided that there were certain things I would do (have my devotions everyday, be nice to my sisters, etc.) and not do (watch TV, listen to bad music, etc.) while I was at home. I failed miserably at all of these resolutions and I was very discouraged when I came back to school, not to mention pretty overwhelmed with guilt. I didn't have my devotions when I came back to school, because I felt like God wouldn't wanna talk to me anyway. Finally after a week or so of being miserably guilty, I decided to talk to God about everything. How I was sorry and if He could give me another chance and take away my guilt, then I would depend on Him more this time because I desperately wanted to love Him again. Supper was in 20 or so minutes so I got off my knees and rushed to get ready. That night we had a vespers service, which is basically a worship talk to open the Sabbath. One of our deans, Jordan, was speaking and, lo and behold, his topic was choices, guilt and the love of God that helps us overcome. I talked to him afterwards about how that worship talk was directly from God to me and I really appreciated it. He said that originally he was going to talk about Daniel and the Lions Den or something random like that, but right before supper God changed his plans! Pretty cool, right? What a God we serve.
Conviction is another way that God proves His existence to me. Before I came to Fountainview, certain words, music, television shows, jokes, etc. were perfectly okay for me. When I came here and started praying and reading my Bible, I started realizing that maybe I shouldn't listen to the same music, watch the same shows, etc. Now the Bible doesn't say "Thou shalt not watch Two and a Half Men". I became convicted over this through the Holy Spirit. That's what the Holy Spirit does when we read the Bible. It applies what we read to our lives, and then convicts us on it. Without the Holy Spirit, I wouldn't probably ever apply "Whatsoever things are pure," To a television show. Why would I? I liked that show and it was hard for me at first to give it up. Something outside of myself had to be telling me that it wasn't the best for my Christian walk in order for me to ever even want to give it up.
So there it is. God's either there or He isn't. And based on my experiences, history, and many other people's experiences, He's there. Sometimes the problem isn't that He "isn't there" for you. Its that with God, you have to SEEK Him to find Him. The Bible doesn't say "You will criticize me and tell yourself that I don't exist so that you can live the way you want, and magically I will pop out from behind a tree on your walk in the park and BAM! You'll know I exist".
It says, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all of your heart." - Jeremiah 29:13 (NASB)
Just my thought for the day :) Don't forget to pray for Zach Myers please! Thank you!
"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." - 1 John 3:18
No comments:
Post a Comment