Although I have a love for many things on this earth, my greatest desire is to love Jesus with all my heart. So I shall start this little blog off with my testimony written earlier this year in April.
Ever since I can remember I’ve believed in God. I grew up in
a Christian home, always went to church and was taught at an early age about
Jesus and what He has done for me. I accepted Jesus as my saviour at 7 and
repented of my sins and since then I’ve never doubted God or His amazing power
and I began a very special relationship with Jesus. I’ve always felt His
amazing Love in my life...I remember being so excited about being a Christian
and feeling so happy at a church service at school. Even though at 7 I was
incredibly immature and my faith had only just begun, I remember being excited
about Jesus...I knew He was real, I really loved Him and felt free to love Him.
From the age of about 8 I began to pray more and more. God
was my wonderful friend and I was often confused as to why so many teenagers
were rebelling against God and didn’t seem to know Him or care to know Him. For
me God was just so real and added so much joy to my simple little life. I was
always very watchful of people, what they thought and did and why they did it.
But I never questioned God or the Bible. If ever something went wrong I must
have done something, I would never think to blame God.At about 11 my life started to become more difficult. I was playing sport with non-Christians, trying to deal with friend issues and just life in general. I had a pretty bad attitude and it seemed like all of a sudden I was being convicted of so many sins. I felt so guilty but also powerless to change. My simple Love for God was tested and I felt far away from Him with all these sins in the way. I knew how to repent and did but it felt depressing repenting for something I knew I was going to do again. I missed God allot during these times but wasn’t sure what to do. I knew what I should do but I felt so weak...
At about 13 my relationship with God really became my everything. I was baptised, started writing a journal of my prayers, ideas of Christian concepts and lessons God was teaching me. I started to pray about every area of my life and became so interested in the Bible and really became addicted to it. I particularly liked Proverbs and as I started reading and praying more I started to change allot of things I had felt so guilty over. I became quite strong in my convictions, had so many things racing around in my head and the more I read the Bible the more I thought about living as a Christian and what was right and wrong. As soon as I’d learn something or decide to do something good I’d have to share it with others and make sure everyone knew about it. I became like a Pharisee haha, no I was worse, I couldn’t even keep these rules myself so I had to tell everyone else. At least that way people knew what I ‘thought’ was right. It was at this time that I was reading the Bible and starting to understand concepts of Christianity that I became so judgmental of others. I was arrogant, rude and I thought I knew so much. I was convicted of this but again I felt powerless to change.
I started asking God to help me to stop being so judgmental
and to make me humble and the thing I realised was that I was doing these
things because I lacked the ability to love. Recently I’ve been begging God to
help me learn to Love others. I was reading verses like ‘love your neighbour as
yourself’, ‘if you cannot love your own brother how can you love me?’, and in
Corinthians ‘if you have not love you are nothing’ it all hit hard. It was all
quite depressing. I was trying to live righteously, trying not to sin and
feeling so bad when I did but I just felt like I’d try harder next time. But
realising I lacked love...I wasn’t sure how to change that. In fact I knew I
really couldn’t. In trying to do everything ‘right’ I was missing God’s grace
and His love and therefore didn’t have it myself.
God has just taken me through a time I’ve found extremely
hard. But my amazing God has answered another prayer of mine by starting to
teach me how to love and have compassion and mercy. I realised that absolutely
nothing good is in me. Alone I’m a mess and I’m sure my family and friends can
vouch for that. But this time more than ever it just amazed me the simple fact
that I am loved, forgiven and can be used. I was focusing so much on what I should do, could do and what I was learning. I worried so much about doing the right thing and because I knew what was right when I didn’t do it I felt like such a failure. I now know it’s not about me. I am a sinner and it’s God that can work in me and help me and He really has.
He has taught me so much. He has convicted me of sin after
sin and brought me low when I start to think my growth as a Christian has
anything to do with me.
God has given me many passions...one I want to pursue for
sure is to mentor girls from the ages of 10-14. For me it was in those years
that I knew God but was so weak in faith that I made bad choices even if I knew
better. But I just love the way God uses your mistakes for His good and I love
that He is so much more powerful than my stuff ups and failures. I really want
to see young girls living for God wholeheartedly and helped during this stage
of their life when they are thinking things through. I want to see them
experience God with their whole heart and encourage their faith even when it’s
weak.
Most of all I have leant that I don’t know much, I still
have a lifetime of learning ahead of me and that I’m a sad, hopeless human
being without God. I am so very weak but God is so strong and loving and good
and merciful.
I most certainly do not have it all together. I’m not sure
that I want to do when I finish school, I struggle with sin and fall back into
bad habits I’ve thought I’d defeated. But I am excited about my future and my
journey as a Christian because I know God is strong and I know He has a perfect
plan for my life and I can rest in that. It’s really overwhelming His love for
me and what He has already done for me in the short 15 years I’ve had on this
earth. I really Love my God. And I am so thankful that He died for me and rose again so that I can experience the most amazing relationship with Him. I really cannot wait to go to heaven and see him face to face and finally be free of my sinful nature and all that I preventing me from experiencing His greatness fully and worshiping Him with all my heart. What a day, what a day that really will be.
-Briahna
