My life is insignificant to the purpose that God has given to us. However my story of how God has manifested himself to me is in contrast, a testament of His character and his love.

 

John 14:21 "..And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

 

For my birthday this year I was given a shirt that reads on the front "My invisible friend created me. psalms 139:13-15" During one of my classes here at Ravencrest, a good friend and teacher of mine asked me after reading the shirt "why did he create you?" I in turn asked him quite intelligently "umm I'm not sure why?". He then answered me "So that he, being invisible, could be seen through you." This short conversation I had with him, reminded me of a time where the Holy Spirit made that expressivly clear to me.

 

Around mid July of last summer, is when I had the most vivid and powerful experience I've had with my Lord thus far. It was a time in my life where a really began to grapple with the idea of God's purpose for my life. Did I really have a purpose at all? Was I just a leaf carried in the wind? Or was I more like a bolt of lightening? Directed at a specific point, at a specific time, for a specific reason? Did I even have a choice? All these questiones and more flooded my mind and in many ways put a wedge between me and God. One day after all these questions began to overwhelm me, I cried out to God. I prayed with great pains, and finally came to the conclusion that I was afraid that God didnt love me enough to have a future and a purpose for me. From a deep sence of desperation I asked The Lord to just reasure me in some small way that he loved me. An ironic grin is on my face as I write this, be carefull what you ask for.

 

 Immediatly after my prayer, I was filled with a curious sensation. The only way I can describe it with a vague sence of justice is: intense. It was every emotion I could ever experience all at once. It was as if God had plugged my body and my mind into a light socket and turned up the juice. I doubled over onto the ground and wept. Feelings of the utmost despair and the highest extacy wracked my being and I was struck with sudden understanding. The Holy Spirit spoke into my mind "your alive" and I was suddenly reminded of a verse I had memorized. Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives through me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith, in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." I then realized that it is God who gives me the very air that breath now. I realized that my life was to be used to show that God does love us. To show His lost sheep that even now, He still searches for them.

 

Its been almost a year since that experience and it stays with me. What I've decided about my purpose since then can be summed up in this quote "If what pleases me is to always and only please God, I can do what I please" -Major Ian Thomas

 

With love in HIM, DP