Thank God February is over
Amen and may all of you be blessed and uphold the name of Jesus Christ, of whom we are indebted to for our salvation.
I wanted to share with all of you about trials and tribulations. We know the scripture that says “Count it Joy brothers when you fall into trials” and I can’t say how true this is. It does not say “if” but when we fall into trials.
Without trials where would we be? How would we learn to change. My elders, teachers, and Pastor’s have drilled this into my brain since I was first saved almost 8 years ago but I did not truly understand their teachings until I fell into what can only be described as the most painful trial of my life.
All in two weeks I had fall upon me false accusations from a dishonest ex contractor I hired , no sales at work for months, my mother had a stroke and fell at Costco and is now paralyzed, and my grandmother had a heart attack three day’s later in San Diego and a horrible personal matter took place in February that has never happened to me before. In the back-drop of all of this my trucks broke down, leaking faucets at the house and to add insult to injury my Credit cards went missing causing us undue stress because we had to call them all in stolen.
Leaning over my mom’s hospital bed at 3am in Seattle at the hospital and stroking her arm watching the heart machine going blip….blip…blip….my wife called me in a panic about a personal crisis that was devastating. Was this ever going to end? It seemed like all was lost and everyday something new would happen to us that would require hours out of the day to fix and or repair. We did not want to even wake up out of bed each morning for fear.
My life was falling apart before my eyes. Man, was I in something deep. I huddled with my Pastor, the elders, and my family and I reached out to God FOR REAL this time.
In one month my life had changed.
This is an excerpt from my personal diary that is private. I wrote this at 1am on February 27th. This was at the peak of my trial:
“As I write this on February 27th at 1AM I tell you that I can feel the Holy Spirit burning my face. It’s like I took a Niacin pill and am sitting in the tanning saloon with no fan. I have never felt so close to God than I am right now and I want you to know Satan that no matter what you do to me I will serve only Jesus Christ of Nazareth and no one else.”
I am proclaiming in the name of Jesus that at my worst I felt closer to the Holy Spirit than I ever have in my entire life and as soon as the Spirit knew I had offered myself to God 100% and humbled myself and admitted that I needed him I was released. I felt it slowly lift. The covering of Christ came and wings of Golden soft warmth held me. I knew I was loved and I immediately began to reflect on why this had happened to me. Why had God allowed Satan to hammer me so hard.
I felt in the Holy Spirit that God wanted me to learn to be a better example of Christ. This was confirmed over and over and over again over the next few days by friends, Pastors, Elders, and family.
You see, I called myself a Christian but I was still joking around. I was still watching the wrong reality programs on TV. I was still doing a slew of things that when other people saw me doing these activities they may have questioned Christians.
No, I don’t drink anymore and no I don’t smoke but If I am to evangelize I need to be a PERFECT example. I need to be Christlike even around my friends and when I am alone. Especially when I am out with my family and NOT just when I am at church, at bible study, or with my “church crew”.
Jesus I promise you that I will be a good example from here on out Lord and I will try to never make you look bad again. I have learned Lord!
I need to be a Good example