YOUR GREATEST LIFE

I had my first real encounter with the unconditional love of God when I was deep in the pit of depression and had given up on everything I had been taught to do to live a victorious and prosperous Christian life. I had all the books, and I bet you do too: books like such-and-such steps to financial prosperity, how to keep the devil off your back, how to live in victory, ten things every Christian wife needs to know, and so on. There is a book on how to overcome every imaginable problem we may face. I am not knocking on these books and teachings. I am writing one right now. They are vital to our growth and maturity, and I am thankful for every anointed minister who shares their gifts in this way.

What many of us do not realize, however, is that there is no formula, no matter how good the book is. No one, two, three, and poof you’ve arrived. There is only an honest and sincere heart of love and obedience before God and standing in and on His Word.

During these times, many years ago I believed I had been doing all of the very sound biblical principles I had been taught, and nothing ever went the way I thought it was supposed to. I was tithing but never getting ahead financially. I was submitting to and respecting my husband, but never feeling like I was receiving the love I expected. I was continually putting the Word in my heart, confessing scripture over things I wanted in my life but never seeing them come to pass.

Years went by like this, and I became more and more discouraged and angry. I did not understand why God would do things for other people and not for me. Of course when you are living as a discouraged and angry person, it tends to spill over into your relationships, especially your marriage. I had become a resentful, cynical, bitter, and offendable person, and as a result, my marriage was falling apart. There was a seed of bitterness toward my husband because, of course, I figured I was doing everything right. So it must be him. Can anyone identify?

This is just where the devil likes to find people. This is where he will start to whisper lies into your ear like, “God does not love you. You will never be good enough. It’s that spouse of yours.” or “You are a complete failure.”

Sure enough, he came along whispering those things to me. I came to the point where I was so disheartened with God and what I thought He was that I literally yelled at Him, “I am not doing this anymore! If I have to jump through all these hoops and do everything perfect to get You to love me or do anything in my life, then I just give up.”

And I did. I stopped confessing the Word and studying my Bible. I cut back on church attendance, and I talked to God with very raw honesty and bluntness only when I felt like it.

I have a bit of a spitfire personality, and if I get upset, I can get very spiteful. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and had to be a bit of a scrapper to get home from school in one piece a lot of the time. Because this was in me, a bit of that spiteful scrapper came out, and my thought process went a little like this, I’ve done everything right, and it’s not working. So I’m just going to do everything wrong. I still loved God but was very disappointed in Him, if you can imagine such a thing.

I had been in a very dark and lonely place for a long time and really did not care if I lived or died. I am being very honest here because I am certain there are those of you who feel or felt that way and would never admit it out loud. You might not even admit it to God.

Let me encourage you with what I discovered through this time of doing everything wrong and being angry, depressed, bitter, and disappointed. The Spirit of God never once for a moment took His presence from me. I guess I expected that He would, but He never did. I remember being in my rebellious, “not giving a rip about anything” moments, and my thoughts would sometimes turn toward God. And a warm feeling would come over me.

This continued on for a couple of years. Every time I would talk to God in my raw, blunt way, even with a glass of wine in my hand, His love would seep into me. My lightning-fast mind finally caught up with my spirit after a while. God did not love me based on how much scripture I confessed or how much I tithed, attended church, prayed, or read my Bible. He just simply loved me. I was doing nothing for Him—and had not for a while—and He still loved me. I felt God’s love and presence more during this time than I had ever felt in my entire Christian walk—more than when I had been leading the prayer team and super kid program or teaching in the Bible school.

Does this surprise you? Well, it sure did me. I had always been told, “God cares more about you than about what you do,” but I never really knew it until then. Remember in the movie Avatar when the female character looks at Sully and says “I see you”? That’s how I felt with God at that time. I really saw Him. He is love. I was so excited when I found this in scripture too. Job said the same thing in Job 42:5 (TLB), “I have heard of you but now I see you.”

None of us wants to go through the magnitude of trials I did, and I’m not saying we need to. If we do, however, what a reward to receive at the end. It’s life-changing. I really believe God would rather have honesty out of our hearts that is not pretty than false flattery for public show. Who do we think we are fooling anyway? He is a big God; He can handle it. God sees your heart, and He can work with honesty.

Looking back now, I realize all that effort in my own strength to please God and trying to get Him to do something for me was the whole problem. It was formulas and religious activity motivated in my benefit rather than a sincere heart of love. God cannot bless human effort, and I cannot earn His favor. He gave me His word to declare over my life as a gift because He loves me, not as a homework assignment to earn a gold star and a reward. I needed to have a revelation of the unconditional love of God just for me because I’m me. In my pit of despair, as ugly as it was, I got it. This period changed my life forever because it changed the way I thought about, loved, looked at, and served God.