It’s been a different type of year for me, not any better or worse than what I have dealt with in the past, simply different. I have a career that I enjoy, family and friends that I love, and things that I have accumulated along the way. With all of this, I still have difficulties intertwined amidst reservations about the direction and interactions in my life. Yet at my current age and ability I would have concluded that I should be further along in life than I am: all my struggle would have ceased due to my current state and a time of enjoyment would have begun. Still, there is something that I have to give much thought—questions and conditions concerning faith and what it is exactly that I believe.

Questions of belief and how to navigate the everyday assaults wage war in my mind to distract me from a sense of who I am destined to become. I fight hard to confirm those things that have been settled by my Savior Jesus Christ when I asked Him to be the Lord of my life. After all, He died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins; peace in every circumstance; and healing of my body. He rose from the dead so that I might live in freedom in this life and have victory over death; and He has supplied everything that I would need in this world. Thus far, the questions of how to enter into a needed relationship, what areas do I need to trust more, and what is it that He is wanting me to experience alludes me.

These questions came about as an encounter of a distinct thought as I sat in traffic on my way home from work. It was also on a day when I needed it the most. Without any prior reasoning or interaction, the words, “If you believe in Me, you have to believe it all,” struck my conscience. In that instant I tried to detect where that thought had come from. Had my current condition with life’s processes prompted me to ponder the world’s most sought-after charge? Perhaps. Or maybe it was one of those days that I was being inundated with the happenings of my surrounding compounded by the fact that I was now awaiting my next moves, bumper-to-bumper, in traffic trying to make my way home. But it was something more. Like trying to make my next move in traffic, the Lord was asking me to make the next move and change course into a deeper life with Him; get out of a stuck pattern and follow His leading.

As I sat incapacitated on all sides by the sights and sounds of others trying to do exactly what I was trying to do—get home—my meditation returned to those core beliefs that I held as a part of my religious experience until now: haven’t I confessed and expressed the realities of my Savior many times and in many ways throughout my brief existence? What then was missing in my walk toward a relationship with the Heavenly Father and what was this all that was expressed to me? What did it mean to the Creator versus what it looked like to me in humanity to believe it all? No wonder the Holy Spirit drew me away from my fleshly disposition and posed a spiritual question that needed to be addressed.

It is not unforeseen of me to sit in reminiscent silence dissecting my work, my ability to provide financially, my health, guilt, and shame over the past. However, the thought that I had entertained was so gentle and clear that it was unmistakable. Even amid my wondering, I knew nearly instantaneously that the thought had not come from me. I would not have chosen to think such a thing. It was the Lord that had spoken to my heart.

I was not sure why or exactly what was expected of me now. What was the Lord trying to convey? As I arrived home that evening the question lingered. How was I to respond to such a directive? Could I even come to a place where I believe it all? In retrospect I am deserving of the statement offered by my Lord as in years past I have asked of Him to fulfill a relationship that would propel me from a stagnant observer to a faithful overcomer. Then I would experience the freedom needed to be used most befitting His purpose and plan.

Journal excerpt July 22, 2014:

Father,

I want to cultivate a relationship with You that would surpass all that I imagine or think. I know Your word that You give abundantly, exceedingly more than I can think or imagine. Fill me with You.

Who is this Lord that I’ve come to know? He is…

Wherever I go, You are with me. Wherever You send me, You go before me.

Yes, I warranted the statement posed to me that day not only from how I have lived, but also the cry from my heart to be filled with something more. At the time those expressive words were penned in my journal, I could not resolve the magnitude of the statement because I only know the surface of what Jesus has done or is doing in my life. If Jesus only came to die for my sins—which He certainly came to save me—then the journey would end there. I would confess those wrongs that I have committed to a just Lord and I would be free of eternal judgement. But again, there is much more. The forgiveness of sins is just the beginning.

Because of my insufficiency or lack, the proclamation came with a challenged—an invitation to go beyond my understanding of what I hold to be true and discover those things that have not yet been fulfilled. A challenge that if accepted will take me into the depth of hurt, repentance, freedom, and ultimate healing; a challenge to transform my thinking and live out what has truly been placed in me from the heart of the Creator. What I already recognize about this challenge is that to be met, it will be on His terms and in His timing. If it is not fully and completely dedicated to it will leave me wondering if this is all there is—delaying the inevitable by the passing of time without a greater purpose. And the challenge has already begun.

The challenge has been left in a mandate to be forever changed. That change will exist by how well I cultivate my relationship with Jesus. It must start there. I must start at that beginning…