There's No Going Back

A very long time ago, very early on in my walk with God, I prayed, “God please let me see people as you see them. Help me to love the way that You love.” I have since come to understand the old Maine adage, ‘You can’t get there from here,’ surely applies to some aspects of spiritual growth.

My spiritual world had been shaken to it’s core. These events did not take place at one time, it was more like the erosion of land due to a pounding surf. Because this is a brief blog post I won’t share those events at this time. I felt lost. I was lost from almost everything I had previously understood about what it meant to be a Christian. I had gotten to the point that I felt if I just left God alone, He would leave me alone.

Time passed but there was always this undercurrent in me that would not let me stop seeking answers and seeking God. I thought that if I could just get back to where I once had been in Him, then I could go on to further spiritual growth, onto a deeper relationship. I was wrong.  I struggled for several painful years and came to the realization that this could not be. I could not go back to that old relationship with Him. There is only forward. 

God has shown me too much about how He loves us for me to ever go back to being the Christian I once had been. Once your eyes are opened to new truths about God, (new to us, not new to Him) something deep inside your spirit changes, if you allow it.  When you try to go back and be the person you were, you no longer see people and situations as you once did. Instead of going back, you move on from the hurt into depths in Christ you never knew before. You love in ways you have never loved before.

When you come out on the other side of a what I am now calling “A Near Spiritual Death Experience” you no longer judge others, or yourself, the way you used to. You don’t wonder if someone will ever live up to the standard of a particular group. Instead, you love people for who they are, where they are, just as God loves you during your own journey. 

My heart is now so full of love for the Creator of all things. I understand and love now in ways I never could have had I not died that spiritual death and been “born again ... again”.