Where Are You In Your Faith Journey?

As I stated in my first official Christian blog post, with this page I’ll be sharing lessons learned along my faith journey, for the purpose of inspiring someone and spreading the joy that I FEEL compelled to as a result of my faith in Christ. 

But as I thought of what to blog about this month, what lesson to share from my journey at this point… It all seemed pretty hard-core for a first blog post of the year.

So I thought about it some more, procrastinated, prayed for inspiration, and just as I finally decided I’ll write whatever I can, just at that moment, it occurred to me that I was planning to share lessons learned in along my faith journey,  but I had  yet to assess at what point I was in this journey?

Am I a baby needing milk (1Cor 3:1-5), or a full-fledged  Ephesians chapter 6 warrior?

To be honest, I think I am somewhere in the middle. I made the personal decision to commit to Christ in 2007, so that makes me 11 years in the fold right? One would say,  that’s a pretty long time, long enough for maturity in the word. Let me just say that one would be lying.

It’s not the number of years so much as the levels of hell and heaven we pass through experience which grows us. Growth in faith is subtle really, it grows on you, you just realize certain attributes of yours have changed. In one of her sermons, Priscilla Shirer talks about discerning the word of God and the sanctification process done by the holy spirit. I love that part of the sermon because it makes it clear these changes are not from us directly or solely our responsibility and consequence of our action. Growth is through that sanctification process. It is through that subtle molding of our likes and dislikes, priorities and desires that growth occurs. 

Growth is when the sermon about claiming the blessings of Abraham is no longer enough and feels glossed over because a quiet voice says “Would you like to claim his trials and tribulations too? Would you like God to give you a calling as absurd as the one he had? Or a trial as unbelievable as that which he was tested with?”

No? Then shush.

Growth is when you actually listen and believe the word that says your salvation will not be earned through deeds, and finally stop judging other people based on your list of thou-shall-nots. 

Growth is when you go beyond praying for what you desire to get and start praying for who you desire to become in Him. Or better yet, when you move beyond praying for yourself and to praying for others, for Gods will, for more growth. 

I think I began to grow, actually grow in faith and seek more knowledge and guidance than prosperity after reading a Purpose Driven Life in 2009.

If you’ve ever suffered from depression and questioned your self-worth, the value of your existence…  well you’d know the potential impact of knowing you have a Purpose to fulfill,  of being challenged and guided to find that you have unique skills, gifts, and talents. Writing the purpose statement for your life is one of the most “getting my shit together” acts EVER.

That manifesto literally compels one to LIVE.

Please, make no mistake, growing in Christ is hard, mostly because it means killing of our selfish nature. You are being “shaved off” until all that’s left is what resembles Christ. In a way, it’s not so much a growing as a reconfiguring. Perhaps that’s why our journey often seems like we are going around in circles, standing at the same spot. We may be learning the same lessons over an over again till we get it right.

One of my all-time time favourite quotes by my role model, the late Maya Angelou is this: 

See, Mama Maya knew that this journey is looooooooooong! And few of us complete it by the time we pass away. So forgive some of us if we respond to the question of whether we are a Christian – read Disciple of Christ- with the answer “I am trying my best to be”.

So there, before I start imparting lessons learned through experiences in my faith journey, consider this a disclaimer: I do not have it all together and I still have a long way to go.