I am in a severe growth phase with my walk with Jesus my Savior. He has set me afire for Him and I #1 – want others to know of His love and #2 – want to serve Him by serving others.
Where I am struggling is my past life in growing up in the church. I have quite a church heritage. I was baptized by my Grandfather who was a pastor, my great-grandparents were missionaries to China, I attended parochial schools and universities, and am fairly well versed in doctrine. And I have had many moments in my journey where I felt God’s touch in my life. He has always been there for me, but I was not always on fire for Him. There were parts of my life that He was not a part of or parts of my life that I did not surrender to Him. I was a “Christian” and might have been saved but I was not the disciple He had called me to be.
So in an effort to dig into this and better understand it, I have drawn up some “visual aids”. I am very visual and also use analogies extensively. The series of white board drawings are a way for me to describe my journey. It is my hope to actually make this a little 30 second video mimicing the UPS white board guy.
As I stated before, I grew up in the church and God has always been a part of my life. This picture depicts that relationship and the slice God had.
Attending church, youth group, confirmation, summer camps and retreats, God grew in my life.
There were times were God was a huge part of my life. However, as you can see, there were still slices of my life pie that did not include Him in them. I had not completely surrendered.
Once I became set on fire for Christ, you can see my heart changed. Jesus became my core.
And I grew as a disciple.
And now, no matter how you slice my life, there is a piece of God in it — family, friends, work, service, church, neighbors, commuting, Lowes, airport, Wal-Mart.
While some might just say this is symantics, I believe this is a huge mind-shift…..even more so, heart-shift. I call it the difference between knowing ABOUT Jesus, and knowing Jesus and walking with Him every day. Don’t just give Him a slice…..give Him your core.
Now there is also a whole tangeant to this discussion about how I still fail and sin every day and am far from perfect. All the more reason to need a Savior I say. But we will save that discussion for another time.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
