Winterfest 2012: personal ramblings on my search for God - NU ...

Winterfest 2012. Simply put, it was awesome not because of the speaker or because the track was anything special.? It was because God showed himself to me, a rebellious, indifferent, prideful self-lover.

I've realized this weekend that one of the many reasons for my indifference and disillusionment is because I've been creating my own religion. No matter how much I tried to surrender to God, it was deep down all a ploy to create a set of actions and words that could culminate to be something that could save me, redeem me. I took an idea or conviction that was initially given by God to fuel a life to live for God, and only clung to that ideal to give me more life. I had life in my catch phrase of "desperate surrender" at first, but then I locked it up, said it was perfect, and let it slowly rot in that casket. I sought God for my agenda of self-improvement and "spiritual growth." I thought if I could make sure I knew where I was headed then I could predict where I would be. And so it all still ended up being about how I could control and direct my future. Which grew to replace needing to trust in God.?So then, without a real source of life, I died. I ran away from my conscience and blinded myself in my self-indulgence.
And so, I came into winterfest with a deluded self-sufficient self-righteousness. Through discussion, KL came to the conclusion that I needed to let go of my desire to "do" something to fix the state I was in?which in my terms was "repentance." But since I didn't even want to do it, I came into Winterfest saying what I needed was a "heart of repentance." But they were all still just words. They were paradigms I neatly boxed so that I could "seek God" in certain controlled steps in order to just feel whole again, because I knew from experience that "God" was related to wholeness, peace, joy, and rest. ...but I only wanted affirmation of my existence, to feel the warm fuzzies of God. My heart was just a petty pathetic whore-addict that wanted it's next God-fix, but I still wanted nothing to do with God, especially with the responsibilities he had placed in my life. Luckily, God is so loving and gracious, yea? While struggling to pray, I realized steadily how long it had been since I really sought God and how warped and disgusting my mind and heart had become. So then, what did I do? I just continued to struggle to pray/think more, trying to work to find that core imperfection in me, so that I could remove it from myself and present it to God. It was getting hopeless. I started blaming it on my distance from God, my forgetting how to really pray and repent. Thankfully, there was community. A recent grad (a different KL) offered to pray for me, I suppose because it seemed evident I was struggling with something. And his prayer was powerful. God spoke to me directly and reminded me what repentance was. Repentance is not something I do to save myself. The confession and "surrender" do not supernaturally save me by posting up another sin on the cross for Jesus to die for. In his great love, Christ died for ALL of my sins. Repentance is meant to be a reminder of what God has already forgiven me of through his great love. It is only in an embrace of that love that there is any life, freedom, or transformation. I still feel weird, because my mind is still longing and searching for ways to set patterns and take control of my newly revived faith. I feel guilty of the months of depravity and debauchery and of the shirked responsibilities and ignored callings. I am eager to "make up" for all of the times that I was missing in action, and I am still so caught up in trying to prepare and predict where my faith will be in the future. But I must just continue to repent, to be reminded that Christ has done it all already and that He loves me without bounds. ...and that the point of everything is not to become a better person with improved spirituality but to simply live?to live as I was meant to live in relationship with my Creator God. To simply let go and be restored to what God intended me to be. I want to be cautious and afraid of where life will take me, but it doesn't matter because I am His beloved and He is mine.

Source: http://aaivprays.posterous.com/winterfest-2012personal-ramblings-of-my-searc

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