When I was a teenager, just saying that I think, Oh that wasn't that long ago but then I saw a picture of a person I went to college with and I thought, "WOW, she is OLD" then I realized she was 45 days YOUNGER than me! NO, I will not be telling you who I thought that about! So as a teenager I had a godly youth pastor who constantly pointed me to Christ and checked up on me and my bible reading. I really flourished under Bro. Ben Sargent. Then he left, some stupid thing about the Navy transferring him . . . and I floundered. We got a new youth pastor and looking back I realized my spirituality was based upon the expectations a man had placed on me and I had not matured in my christian life to sustain those expectations based upon what God had for me. Do I think I did wrong, no, "I spake as a child, etc." I understood as a child I followed a man God had placed in my life and when he left I didn't realize I was supposed to be following God.
So as I grew physically but not really spiritually I went from camp season to camp season and each year I would surrender YET again, my will to read the Bible every day. I went to Bible college and I read the Bible for class and went to chapel 3 times a week, to church at least another 3 times a week, and dorm devotions at least 2 times a week, read the Bible for some class or another at least once a day and my personal Bible study was NON existent! Then I got out of Bible college got married to a wonderful man and became the leader who took kids to camp. Now, the only time I read my bible on a consistent daily basis was when I went to camp with those teens. Quite frankly and to my chagrin I was "too busy" serving the Lord to spend time with Him. I don't know if ANY of my former teens from the youth groups we had a privilege of serving in know this so I'm sorry if you are reading this and just realized I'm human!
God continued to wait for me. Imagine, me with all my pride and self righteousness thinking how great I was because of what I was DOING for the Lord, and God patiently waits for me. He would lovingly bring trials into my life that made me rush back to God for a quick time of repair. I would desperately read His word trying to rely on some past passage and hoping to get new strength from stale bread and when the problem corrected itself I would go back to my old busy ways. During this time in my life God became "Mr. Fix It". I rode the spiritual river of expectations placed on me by those looking up to me and those over me but still I was not seeking God's face. I was not wanting a relationship with Him. I was worse than Martha, cumbered about with many things. To my shame my husband would get up in teen class and ask who had read their Bible every day for 7 days and not wanting to lead others astray I would sheepishly raise my hand hoping God wasn't going to strike me dead from outright lying in church!
Then God graciously did something else. He moved us from the wonderful city of Grand Rapids, MI to a little farming community in Ohio just outside of Toledo and there He placed my husband as the Pastor and I became the Pastor's Wife. Now, I was confronted with the fact that I was a leader of not just children and teens but their mothers and grandmothers. For the first time I realized I needed to be reading my Bible and I better get my head on straight and get a hold of this thing. So I prayed and asked God for help and opened my Bible the first of the year with a resolve to Do my Duty and nothing more! At this point in my life Bible reading became a chore I would check off so I would no longer be lying in church. I kept this up for about a month an a half and I was feeling pretty good with myself thinking I was accomplishing something. Sure I hadn't changed or been spoken to by God like other people say but I wondered if God even really did that! Those people were probably secretly Pentacostals!
After about a month and a half I hit Leviticus and I thought I was going to die! I missed days, I got behind, I started speed reading to catch up and with two small children the idea of doing this for the rest of my life was daunting and discouraging. Please don't hate me for being human. The thought of Isaiah looming ahead of me was enough to cause me to go to God and tell Him that if I didn't start getting something soon from His word that I was quitting and I would lie about it and not care.
I think God must have heard me because I don't deserve what He did but I went up for a baby shower for my former Pastor's Wife and the new youth pastor's wife was giving the devotion. She nervously got up there and said, I don't know much about speaking especially at these sorts of things but I'm going to tell you what I do for my personal devotions . . . And next time I'll tell you what happened. So if you've read this far hold on because from here on out it only gets better!
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