Breaking the Silence: Jesus at the Center

Hello my blog readers. I've been pretty quiet the past couple of years. Not such a great blogger huh? But I did write 2 books and a Bible Study in that time span. I needed to step away for a length of time and process my life as a committed Christ Follower. God has certainly tested my faith, and keeps bringing me through. He has stripped me of most everything I held dear in life. Friends, family, church, jobs...it's been really hard...and hard really isn't a great word to do justice to being stripped by God.
Where I have found myself these past few years is re-evaluating who I am as a child of God. What does that mean? I've been stretched in my thought processes. If I can admit something to you...this missionary struggles with evangelicalism...and am "recovering" in a sense. You can go ahead and think I've lost Jesus, start the prayer chain, otherwise known as Gossip, sister Allison is going down the wrong path. I'm a burnt out, single church goer. I'm burnt out just trying and faking it and allowing abuse. I've had to ask myself if my relationship with Jesus is genuine? Or am I just copying and mimicking? Is it like school where what they feed me what I need to know and what to sound like, and I give back on a test? Is this true knowledge? Is that true Worship and Christianity? Is that true relationship? Or is my speech just fake, and full of Christian terms and words. How is my heart? Is my heart truly encountering God? Is my heart is tune with my Jesus? Is this all smoke and mirrors? Are my emotions playing tricks on me, and leading me all over the place? Am I living from "experience to experience?" Maybe this could all be dismissed by anxiety, but I think it's good to evaluate where we are in our walk with Jesus. To make sure we are getting to know a very real, alive, active Jesus in our daily grind we call life. Who is Jesus? Why Christianity? Why the choice to do this? We really don't have to. Why read the Bible? Why pray? I mean really? Sure we can spit out answers of what we've heard all our life. Why serve other people? Are we serving to feel good or make God happy? Do we genuinely love God's people? If we love God we do. Do we love God? How do we love Him?

I've always strived to be a honest, genuine person. I've spoken my mind on a lot of things and have made a lot of people mad. I don't have a lot of friends, and that's okay. You find you're not so popular when you don't do what others expect from you, and when you don't roll with the popular crowd. When you don't fit in molds.

I guess you could say I've been out to find my "center," my peace deep within me where I can go...this calm in storm. I've not done any weird chants or stretches or summoned anything. It's been pretty brutal, it's been a parched desert, a dark cave, and I've had to fight, and lean so heavily into Jesus when He has seemed so distant. I just wrote my 2nd song for 2017...was really hoping for a more productive year song wise, but I titled the song, "Centered Prayer." It's a sweet little chorus to bring us back to God when the events of the world and our anxious thoughts take us away from the beautiful face of Jesus. Darlene Zschech and Hillsong wrote a song called, "Jesus at the Center." I challenge you to search yourself, and let the Holy Spirit search you to see who is at the center of who you are. Who are you? Have you let God break you? God bless you as you seek Him. I look forward to writing again in the coming days.



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