Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Learning to Trust in God Alone
On an ordinary February Friday in 2022, my life suddenly felt extraordinary. My life also ended. Not by my hand, but by my heart. After years of running from God, I finally stopped and turned myself towards God. I came to believe in a power much higher than I.
Full of repentance and humility; thankfulness and gratitude; peace and love; I fully surrendered myself to God. To live a new life. A life of love that tries to honor God and all people, including people resistant to God’s unconditional love and unyielding grace like I once was.
My being born again isn’t an appearance of cosmetic righteousness, it’s a shedding of my old self. New wine in a new skin. To be a light in the darkness.
Like every prodigal son or daughter, everything I knew to be true about my old life changed. I mean everything. My entire understanding of the world, my misplaced faith in worldly institutions and most of all, my values. A life no longer in service to self, but in servitude to Love.
Affirming my new life, I could no longer return to my past professional life of pharmaceutical marketing. My adult years in service to selling stuff that wasn’t always in people’s best interest or worse. A life whose only purpose was to generate client wealth not public health.
Saying goodbye to my former self as I looked to “reinvent” my career at fifty-five. A scary and unnerving situation for someone who had always strived for certainty. Trying to live a life of faith and trust in God’s promise of ask and it will be given. Search and you will find. Knock and the doorwill be opened.
My new faith filled life also meant questioning all my past beliefs; asking why. Discovering dark answers that would lead me to painful but truthful realizations that I could no longer blindly believe in our immoral worldly institutions. Institutions I was told to trust when I was a child and to never question as an adult. Institutions that are morally corrupt. Infected with lies, greed and an operating system that’s visibly in conflict with love of neighbor.
Abandoning my past person, profession and politics, also meant saying goodbye to the lifestyle I believed I deserved or at least desired. A life filled with stuff. A life of keeping up appearances.
Realizing that I no longer needed a four-bedroom home with a three-car garage, two bathrooms and a swimming pool. More stuff always means more worries. Understanding that things weigh us down and God is all about lifting us up.
Recognizing that if I let go of what I don’t need, God has already given me the resources to pursue what I do need. The one thing I never had when I chased money. Time in this world.
Our stint in this world isn’t something we can give ourselves. This life is a gift that only God gives. A gift that will lead us to something greater now and in the future when we pursue Love’s narrow path.
This gift of time has allowed me the opportunity to give of my time. Volunteering to help others who need the support of other people. Recalling the generosity of adults who did right by me in my past young life. Paying it forward by giving back.
This gift of time has allowed me to pursue my past passion of writing before my life became only about lots of work and a little play. Remembering that writing is an act of Divine creation. The difference between then and now, is that my words aren’t a private presentation but a public pageant.
Sharing my personal thoughts and vulnerable experiences with the world or at least with those who are interested or who find my words in their social media feed. Food for thought; Sustenance for the heart.
This gift of time has allowed me to have the opportunity to study and think more deeply not only about my own life, but the human experience and God. Pondering ancient questions in postmodern America. What is the meaning of life? What is reality? What is our purpose? Heady stuff that I believe honors God’s gift of intellect.
Even with all these blessings, I sometimes feel like an ungrateful child or a spoiled adult. A reminder of my past hardened heart. Like thankless people who have been given everything but only perceive emptiness. Blind to their abundant abundance that’s evident to everyone else.
I’m trying to be comfortable with change, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Reminding myself sometimes hourly, and always daily that I am a child of God. Recalling the words of Jesus that my only concern is God’s kingdom and righteousness, and all things will be provided. Reinventing who I am as autumn closes in, and I learn to trust in God alone.