40 Days of Change Devotional

(Go to ineed2change.org to read the way God has brought about change in 40 people's lives)

Change: (v) To make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone.

I ask that before you read this, you would pray for God to prepare your heart for what you are about to read. This is a very sensitive subject to me, and one that has happened recently in my life. I pray that God would be glorified in this and that He would increase as I decrease.

When I was first asked to do this devotional about change that God has brought about in my life, I had many instances come to mind: When I was called to ministry, how I changed after my freshman year of college, or how my view of God and relationship with Him has changed over my life, just to name a few. There is one that sticks out more than these. This was a very hard subject for me to talk about, and even as I type these words my entire “worldly” self is screaming at me to stop.
This summer I was involved in a four-month relationship with a girl named Anna who was not a Christian. While I had God clearly telling me (through other people) that this relationship was unhealthy I completely ignored Him, and did what I wanted. As the relationship progressed the relationship became intimate, and the last month of the relationship we started having sex. After the relationship ended, my life was devastated. I had poured my entire self worth into one person. I had completely lost my relationship with God, and separated myself from my community of believers. I knew that I was forgiven, but I could not forgive myself. Not only had I made myself unclean, but I had also taken the purity of a beautiful child of God. Even though she didn’t know or understand, I had taken something from her that was not mine to take.

For the next four months I lived in a state of depression. I could not forgive myself, and I could not accept the love of God, my friends, or my family. I was literally living in the pit of hell, and people were trying to help me out, but I was too comfortable in the depressive state I was living in. It finally took God speaking to me through Tamara, who at the time, I had only known for a week. She called me out on all the crap I was living in and that is when it hit me. It is not about us cleaning ourselves up before we can come to God. God meets us where we don’t belong, and pulls us out of what we are in! I then realized that God was the reason that my relationship with Anna ended. Although at the time I didn’t see it, God taught me so much from that relationship, and He is still teaching me things to this day.

I learned how essential the Word of Christ is in my life! I now have started reading the Bible and spending time in His Word daily. This has brought so much life, and by doing this God has shown me so much! I also learned that for me to be truly forgiven, I must forgive myself. Over the past four months of my life God has shown me how essential my community at the Wesley is, and the reason I am still in Ruston is because of the Wesley Foundation! I am no longer living in the shadows of others, and I am no longer afraid to share fully and completely about my life. I was so afraid of opening up and sharing my life with people, but that has completely changed. To be involved in a community is to know each other’s struggles, faults, fears, failures, and joys. God has continuously shown me this and has continued to change my life and my relationship with Him.