Commentary- Gods Push

Today I
had one of those little moments you tend to appreciate over time, even more so when your going through a tough time in your personal life
like I have recently. As I sat at work doing my job and finishing my
listen of This Week In Tech an urge came over me. An audiobook had
been sitting on my iPod untouched for several months. That book was
Radical by David Platt. The reason it had been sitting there was
because it reminded me of a pain I was trying to ignore. A small
group of individuals that had hurt me deeply in the way they had approached me about a certain subject I won't go into here but if you
listen to the podcast I've mentioned as a offhanded remark a few
times. It was a pain I have to deal with in my life in a ministry all
the time and yet this time in my life when it came around it hurt
more than anything else. Becoming a heretic for a small group of church
goers. When I say I deal with it all the time I mean that God has
always lead my family from one place to another for various reasons.
Sometimes in good terms and other times it was just meant to be that
we would find the injustice in a place and make it appear in the
surface if not for just one small moment before it would vanish again
in the eyes of the congregation. Why this time was different I have no
idea but for once I was deeply hurt. So there I was sitting at the
machine with the urge to drag something up that would hurt me..why?
Obviously God had something to push me with and it was about time I
listened. As I listened instantly I recalled how wonderful this book had been. A
real way of making you think about not only yourself but the struggles
you signed up for when you decide to follow god in the first place.
The things most churches wont dare mutter for fear of scaring off potential new members or loose one more notch in their post of saved lifes that have little follow up after the notch is made. The
struggle that was mentioned hit me like a ton of bricks and even
harder than that. "When you follow god you will be despised for
your beliefs even by religious organizations." It couldn't have
been clearer if someone had yelled it in my face. I realized that
rather than moving on with the wonderful opportunity that god had
placed before me I was sitting dwelling on the past. A past that god
had even been wonderful enough to help me transition through smoother
than anything else in my life and yet here I was keeping the hurt
that he had been trying so hard to help me forget. He had even showed
me who my true friends were in the place and kept them with me while those that
hurt me seemed to vanish in my life in a puff of smoke never to be
heard from again. Yet I still sat there having pity for myself? In
hindsight I should be yelling "How could I be so stupid!"
but greater still is the fact that I was doing all this and god still
had patience for me..through all I kept in my heart he was still there
to mend me when he did finally get my attention. My life right now is
in a great transition. If you have never looked up a program called
celebrating recovery then look it up. Now. I'll wait for you to get
back. Got it? Good. This program came in my life out of nowhere as
family friends of ours were involved and God lined everything right
up to put it in our lifes as part of our ministry. Not only that but
the first night of it spoke directly to my heart about forgiveness as
the family friend had a lesson plan but dropped it for the night
because he said he felt god told him he had to say something about
that very subject. I realize now that was God chipping away at me to
deliver the final push while I sat at work. I feel the push and I'm
ready. All I really ask is prayer from all of you as I continue on in
my life and my new road god is leading me down. It won't be easy..it
never is but with gods push I can do anything.