My Spiritual Journey

Honesty. Harder to do than to say. Honesty with myself about myself is a hard thing. I want to gloss over the bad stuff and focus on the good stuff...or at least the stuff that doesn't seem really really bad.

However, honesty in my prayers is important. I watched a DVD of a sermon Chris Webb preached at the Renevore conference Brent went to in San Antonio last week. He spoke at the last Renevore conference I went to in Houston as well. When this man speaks, you just listen. He is funny and motivating, but mainly just oozes Christlikeness.

So his sermon was about sin...sort of. But mainly it was about being honest with God. He used David as an example of a sinful life. David was constantly sinning, but yet he was a man after God's own heart. He then read the honest feelings that David wrote in the Psalms. Honesty about wanting people dead, about God forsaking him, about hating people. Very honest and hard to really read sometimes. Those are all emotions I would be ashamed to admit to myself and would definitely never write them down for someone else to read. However, they are real emotions and David was very honest when he wrote them. That honesty was what allowed God to use him and change him.


The concept was that if we would just pray honestly about what is truly in our heart, then God could change that sinful stuff in us. You've heard that before right? So have I, but it forced me to stop and really think about how much I'm examining my life...really examining my life with honesty. Do I pray through my really sinful messed up stuff or just the "medium" sinful messed up stuff? Am I confident enough in my Savior to sit down with him and tell Him my dark stuff, or do I try to gloss over it quickly in my prayers and my life so I don't have to focus on what's not good about me?

We're all messed up and sinners. And honestly, I usually don't have a lot of trouble confessing my sins, but I definitely don't want to sit and discuss my sins or the root of those sins. I want to confess and move on quickly so I can forget. The transforming comes when I'm sitting and not just confessing and moving on, but discussing with honestly what is going on in my heart. Discussing those emotions that make me ashamed to even admit that they exist.

This week I am working on that honesty in my prayer life. In order to do that and really focus on God, I am committing to spending time with the Lord three times a day. I think I need at least that in order to keep me in the presence of God so that He can continue to transform me. There's nothing like honesty to make you realize how much you need transformed!