I dated this girl when I was about 16 or so, we landed up dating for 4 years, it was one of those first love kind of things, or at least what we knew love to be and as far as that went, we loved each other. Her dad didn’t return that love at all and he really didn’t like me much and I wasn’t really allowed over at her house. The only two times I actually did crack an invite, was once to her Grandparents house for Sunday lunch. In those days I was wearing very low pants, and trying to find my way in the fashion world. I made it through most of the day, a little bit of small talk, I was super nervous the whole day. Some how it landed up with just the granddad, the dad and me in the lounge. I thought it would be a great time to get out of there, and the ladies had just started too do the dishes, so I thought “Let me jump up quick and go help them”. Little did I know my trust worthy belt had broken and as I jumped up in front of these two men my pants came falling down and not just to my knees all the way to my ankles. Needless to say looking back this is quite funny, but in the moment all I could do was grab my pants and run out. The other time I was over at her house during the day when her dad was suppose to be at work. He came home quick and I had to hide in the bathroom. But as fate would have it he needed to go to the bathroom and I got caught. He was trying to open the bathroom door and I was trying to push it shut. Was not a good day for me, but through it all we continued to date. It got really difficult the more and more we grew as Christians, because we knew we should be honouring her dads wishes but at the same time we loved each other and wanted to be together. I still remember the one-day we broke up because of the issues it was causing. The next day I felt as if I was Abraham. For those of you who don’t know who he is I will give you a quick run down else read the full story in Genesis 22. In a nutshell, God tells Abraham he is going to have a son, and it takes forever for the son too be born, everything in Gods time I suppose. When the son gets older, God decides Abraham must show his love for God by sacrificing his son on this mountain. So Abraham takes his son Isaac and leads him to the mountain, his son the ever inquisitive child is asking all sorts of questions like why am I carry all this wood if we don’t even have a lamb. Abraham reassures him that God will supply it. So up they go, they get to the spot where the sacrifice is going to take place, Abraham grabs Isaac and through tears and screaming ties him to the alter and picks up an axe to kill Isaac. As the axe is coming down to end him this angel calls out and says STOP! Now that is good timing, a little too close for Isaac I am sure, but Gods timing always has reasoning behind it. So anyway stuck in the bush is this little lamb that came out of nowhere, so Abraham and Isaac having a father son moment and kill the lamb, Isaac very happy about that. God was testing Abraham to see his commitment to him and how far he was willing to go. So this is who I felt like and needless to say by lunch time this girl and me where back together. We spoke to lots of people who all had different opinions and no matter how much we broke up because it was the right thing to do we never stayed apart. Looking back I think it was because although we had an idea of what was right we never really believed it for ourselves. We where living for each other and ourselves. Although we loved God and wanted to please him we felt the requirements were too much right then and there.
We never took ownership of our own faith; we just lived through the peoples around us faith. We where trying to be Christians but instead of worshipping Jesus we where worshipping each other. We did not take the call on our lives seriously. Instead we tried to feed off other people’s relationships with God and not develop our own.
The reason I think there is so many people that say they have tired Christianity and it didn’t work for them is that they tried someone else’s version of it. If Jesus is a personal God then we all should have our own relationship with him. In the same way if a friend and me dated the same girl, although she is the same, we are different and we will not share the same relationship with her. Just like in dating though there are things that will cross over for all relationships there is things that apply to all of us with our relationship with Jesus. There are black and whites, things that won’t change, but I think if we are honest and get into the bible and God’s calling for our lives there is a lot of grey. We must just be careful not to teach or preach grey as black and white, or to use grey as an excuse to get more grace! Taking ownership of your faith means asking questions about it and seeking out the answers.
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