(2905131334-1407,3005131951-2024)
For a long
time
I was deaf
and rebellious.
As soon as someone
talked to
me about Jesus
I started
to rage.
I did not
want to hear anything
and it went
in one ear and out the next.
My attitude
towards the other person
was
aggressive
and he got
to feel the full load
of my
discomfort.
I wanted to have noting to do
with church
or religion.
They had
done too much wrong
over
generations in my eyes.
But the other person
was not
talking about church and religion
rather
about Jesus and the Bible.
I could not differentiate the two
because
many criminal acts
were
committed in their name too.
Deaf and rebellious
I held my
ground
to the
point where I was not
receptive
to Jesus’ love,
reconciliation
and healing
for myself
any more.
When someone told me
about Jesus
I looked
upon people and their deeds
and not
upon him
and was
turned off by it.
But after
all
it was not
about human forgiveness,
human love,
or even
human healing,
but a godly
one.
For a long time
I could not
recognize the difference,
for I was
too busy with scolding.
But during that time
my heart was
empty too.
I was worn
out
and tired
of searching.
No entertainment in the world
lasted long
enough
to fill my
emptiness.
No position
satisfied me.
No human
could give me
the love I
was longing for
on a long-term
basis.
No peace
was lasting,
no joy
remained.
My heart
was burned out
but I was
too stubborn
to confess
it.
I wanted nothing to do with Jesus
for I was
utterly disappointed
in the
humans
who told me
about him.
But then there was a time
when I was
at the end of myself
and wanted
to find out for myself
what Jesus
was truly all about.
Far off from all religious activities,
I took a
Bible in my hand
and started
to search in it
for this
godly love,
the
reconciliation,
and the
healing
of my
broken emotions.
No human was allowed
to tell me
anything.
I did not
ask anyone for advice,
for I did
not want to be
manipulated
by anyone.
I thought
if there is
such a thing
as God’s
love for me,
then he can
show it to me on his own
just by
reading His Word.
And that is exactly the way it was.
Of course I
had to search for it,
but then I
found some passages
that spoke
directly into my life
as if they
were written for me.
There was
hope for my hopelessness,
comfort for
my grief,
joy for my disappointment.
I noticed the people back then
were in the
same boat as I was.
They were
deaf and rebellious too.
They were
also fed up
with
superficial religiosity and rules
that were
not even kept
by the leadership.
But then
Jesus came
and he
turned everything upside down.
Slowly but surely
I gave up
my deafness
and no
longer let things
go in one
ear and out the other.
Slowly but
surely
I put down
my rebellion
for it
never did me much good
to start
out with.
Slowly but
surely
I did away
with my stubbornness;
all it
brought me
was a hard
and empty heart.
Slowly but
surely
I started
to recognize the difference
between
empty religiosity
and
life-giving faith.
If I happen to meet
another
person
who wants
to talk to me
about Jesus
now
I am
prepared to ask him
some other
questions
instead of aggressively
rejecting him.
Theme: From being the rejecting one to searching
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