First of all, when I said in my blog description that these posts would not be about me.......directly, that was an implication. I expect that you all understand what it means, but just in case you don't I am going to further clarify so I don't look like a heretic. What I was implying was that my posts will not be about me, rather they will be about Jesus Christ in me. However, what I write about will be indeed constrained to this physical body, and will reference things that it has experienced, but what I attempt to express is not about these tired sinews1, but rather about the living fire inside of me.
Now that that is out of the way I would like to tell you a story, or rather a testimony. As you read you may scoff about its insignificance, but to me this is another personal recognition of where I am in my faith, and I Praise Jesus for it and no other.
Tonight at Bible study we discussed temptation. All the scriptures we discussed had been words I had relied on and turned to for guidance hundreds of times in my life, so you could say they were familiar. The leader of the Bible Study knew this too, for he had been one of the persons I had relied on in my time of distress. Because of where I've come to through the power of God he trustes me to be able to communicate what these scriptures actually mean to the few different guys I talked to.
So we split into groups of one teen, and one junior higher. We read through the verses given, which were James 1:13-15, Psalms 119:9-11, and John 14:15, and analyzed them. They are fairly simple verses and we found the answers easily to the questions he had asked us.
In this time I worked with 3 of the junior highers just making sure they understood what the scriptures meant. In that I expected them to tell me how to apply it to their lives and made sure they understood the verses enough to do so.
Now all of this was quite a long back story, but this is the part of the story that rocked me and brought incredible joy to my heart:
Out of the three boys I worked with, the youngest one of them is this cool guy named Kendel (This could be spelled incorrectly, correct me those of you who know in the comments please). He took a little while to process the real meaning of the scripture, but he got it down solid eventually. Now he's a curious kid as a lot of kids his age are, but no one can dislike him for it, he's just so great! Anyway, in this time of pouring over the Word together there was a high level of bonding between us that I could see he didn't even realize, but I saw it and encouraged it and went with it.
Anyway, even this is backstory, but here is where it hits:
Our leader was closing it up gradually, and giving encouragements and I could see that Kendel was sitting there with a bland expression on his face. Completely uninterested in what our leader had to say his eyes were searching the room for something to amuse him and finally stumbled upon a notebook I saw sitting right next to him. That notebook was my notebook. And as an innocent oblivious young kid does I'm sure he thought to himself, "Oh a notebook! Cool! I bet whatever is in here is way more amusing that whatever this leader guy is saying."
As I saw these quick events unfold one right after the other my heart stopped for a second. For if you've ever had a notebook, a journal, or a diary you know that it's yours. Anyone else that touches it might get a legion of knuckles thrown their way. However, my heart resumed.
This is where an incessant smile lit my face.
My notebook is my life. I write where I am, what I am, where I want to be, who I want to be with, everything. I'm sure you can relate. You expose yourself for you are in your notebook. Your notebook holds your secrets, and will never purposely betray you by revealing them to someone else. Unless, someone finds that book, and reads it.
And as Kendel opened that book and innocently flipped through the first few pages a growing joy spread over me. For I was finally open and transparent. Everything that I am I trusted to that kid. Not necessarily because he was trust worthy, but because I have something in my notebook that I'd never had before.
I'd written freedom in those pages.
¹ Quote from the 5ᵗʰ line of "For Righteousness' Sake" by Jesse Lasley - http://jessecoulonlasleypoems.blogspot.com/2012/02/for-fighteousness-sake.html
Now that that is out of the way I would like to tell you a story, or rather a testimony. As you read you may scoff about its insignificance, but to me this is another personal recognition of where I am in my faith, and I Praise Jesus for it and no other.
Tonight at Bible study we discussed temptation. All the scriptures we discussed had been words I had relied on and turned to for guidance hundreds of times in my life, so you could say they were familiar. The leader of the Bible Study knew this too, for he had been one of the persons I had relied on in my time of distress. Because of where I've come to through the power of God he trustes me to be able to communicate what these scriptures actually mean to the few different guys I talked to.
So we split into groups of one teen, and one junior higher. We read through the verses given, which were James 1:13-15, Psalms 119:9-11, and John 14:15, and analyzed them. They are fairly simple verses and we found the answers easily to the questions he had asked us.
In this time I worked with 3 of the junior highers just making sure they understood what the scriptures meant. In that I expected them to tell me how to apply it to their lives and made sure they understood the verses enough to do so.
Now all of this was quite a long back story, but this is the part of the story that rocked me and brought incredible joy to my heart:
Out of the three boys I worked with, the youngest one of them is this cool guy named Kendel (This could be spelled incorrectly, correct me those of you who know in the comments please). He took a little while to process the real meaning of the scripture, but he got it down solid eventually. Now he's a curious kid as a lot of kids his age are, but no one can dislike him for it, he's just so great! Anyway, in this time of pouring over the Word together there was a high level of bonding between us that I could see he didn't even realize, but I saw it and encouraged it and went with it.
Anyway, even this is backstory, but here is where it hits:
Our leader was closing it up gradually, and giving encouragements and I could see that Kendel was sitting there with a bland expression on his face. Completely uninterested in what our leader had to say his eyes were searching the room for something to amuse him and finally stumbled upon a notebook I saw sitting right next to him. That notebook was my notebook. And as an innocent oblivious young kid does I'm sure he thought to himself, "Oh a notebook! Cool! I bet whatever is in here is way more amusing that whatever this leader guy is saying."
As I saw these quick events unfold one right after the other my heart stopped for a second. For if you've ever had a notebook, a journal, or a diary you know that it's yours. Anyone else that touches it might get a legion of knuckles thrown their way. However, my heart resumed.
This is where an incessant smile lit my face.
My notebook is my life. I write where I am, what I am, where I want to be, who I want to be with, everything. I'm sure you can relate. You expose yourself for you are in your notebook. Your notebook holds your secrets, and will never purposely betray you by revealing them to someone else. Unless, someone finds that book, and reads it.
And as Kendel opened that book and innocently flipped through the first few pages a growing joy spread over me. For I was finally open and transparent. Everything that I am I trusted to that kid. Not necessarily because he was trust worthy, but because I have something in my notebook that I'd never had before.
I'd written freedom in those pages.
¹ Quote from the 5ᵗʰ line of "For Righteousness' Sake" by Jesse Lasley - http://jessecoulonlasleypoems.blogspot.com/2012/02/for-fighteousness-sake.html
Wow! That's amazing! In the Word it says you will reap what you sow. But if you sow righteousness and freedom, then well that's what will be reaped in full.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Love it.
I LOVE YOU!!!!!!! That is so amazing!!! Wow, I don't even know what people would think if they read my diary... i write some weird stuff in there... and beautiful stuff, too.
ReplyDeleteI didnt know u kept a notebook like that!
Did the kid say anything to u about it?
Nope, as I said, he was completely innocent. Had no idea anything that he was doing was slightly wrong, all he knew was he was shuffling through some pages in a book he picked up.
ReplyDeleteDid he say anything to you AFTER he read it? Like, about what you'd written?
DeleteNope. Either he had no comment, or just thought it unnecessary to talk to me about it.
ReplyDelete