So what’s your testimony? I have heard this question far more in my college years than anywhere else. Even during meetings, it’s happened multiple times that the “icebreaker” was a five minute testimony.
Every time my answer changes. I used to wish my testimony would be marked by one specific event, when God finally revealed Himself to me in a dream and boom I did a quick 180 turnaround. Those stories are so inspiring, huh.
As for most of my spiritual life, it was a piggyback off of God talking to other people around me. My sister wants to put her old life behind by getting baptized, hey I should do that too. Someone stands up during summer retreat and says how he has realized his brokenness, I agree with that, this retreat is a big deal. My friend is saddened that he has turned a blind eye to Berkeley and starts a fast, I guess I also must need a heart for Berkeley now. I had been so accustomed to simply hearing of those around me that my faith was not just my faith. I was merely a recorder repeating what I heard.
Around this time last year the church I was attending mandated that our goal is we needed to experience God firsthand. Yeah sounds good.
There are some verses and passages in the Bible I react negatively with, and I’ve learned the name for this feeling is conviction. One way I have been convicted is through Philippians 2:12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
I’m saved, why do I have to work it out? And I was taught that the fear of the Lord is the fear of being away from him, why must I also be trembling?
Now this is where it went awry. I had been disobedient before, and it seemed fine. I came back. The problem is not that I was reluctant to change, rather that I did not see myself as in need. This innate brokenness in theory made sense, in my feelings, not so much. I knew I had sin. Heck, I had been aware of some of the persisting sins for quite awhile, yet I was too prideful to consider them deserving of death.
Every sin, whether one thinks it big or little, is sin. I needed to know the true cost of it, not the way it seemed insignificant when I prayed for forgiveness and it would so easily be put away. I needed to know the weight he carried, the wage that took the Almighty God himself to come down in the form of man to pay for.
Needless to say, this year has evoked a lot of humbling. A lot of praying. A lot of asking God to show me the weight of my sin. A lot of time in silence, which is not as easy as it sounds. A lot of hoping that God would come to me in a dream to explain it all.
And now I give two motivations to encourage you to spend time towards taking sin more seriously:
God requires this of you.
“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance...Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 3:8, 10 ESV
And it’s also a way to experience the fullness and upside down-ness of God. By recognizing our sin, we also receive a greater love towards God.
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Luke 7:47 ESV
For me, working out my salvation meant facing my sin face on. Not the sin of the average American, not the sin that my friend is struggling with, and not the sin that is addressed in the sermon. I needed to start being more independent, with Christ.
So when I laid out my sins and compared my life to God’s standard, welp. I could not believe that God would love me, let alone not destroy me. Also note this process took/is taking way longer than the one sentence seems.
I had this screwed perspective that the star of the testimony is the coming to Christ. But, is it not even more amazing that God is continuing to work in and for us? Eight proud years as a Christian and I’m still growing. He doesn’t just pop into our stories and finishes it. He uses imperfect people to bring His kingdom down to earth. WOW.
This restructuring and changing perspective of my life is ongoing, so of course my testimony is going to change. I will never be perfect, at least not in this body. Praise the Lord! I am still a child of God. Now I get to add this past year as the season where Taylor learned more about sin and fear and love, another year leading up to the ultimate one when Jesus returns in all His glory and might, and another sentence in my testimony.