God.
Sometimes I don't know what to say to you. Like right now. You know everything going on. You're amazing. And the sense of peace I'm feeling right now, is incredible. It's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
Sometimes I don't know what to do in certain situations and I do the stupidest possible thing. I ask that you guide my words and guide my mind so that I can speak with words of pure intent and have a clear mind whom uses common sense. I know you can help me with that and I apologize for not coming to you sooner.
You know what's going to happen in the long run and I need to trust you. I ask that you guide my actions and words so that they may reflect you rather than my selfish-self.
Right now, I need you.
Really, I always need you but sometimes I'm too ignorant to accept it.
I know the only way for me to get through these situations is through you. I ask that not only will you help me through this, but that when the time comes that I may be able to learn, as you, my teacher, teach me to praise you when times are not just bad but when times are also good.
I want to praise you when things are going great.
I pray that I can divert my attention from guys to you.
And if my attention is to stray to a guy, that this guy is of you and that's where I am supposed to be right now. And if it's not, then I ask that you somehow divert my attention from him so that I do not fall once again.
Lord, I need you and I love you. Please comfort both of us in this time of confusion and maybe occasional loneliness.
Thanks for all the blessings you've supplied me and my family with.
Amen.
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I found this today when I was looking through one of my old notebooks from high school.
I remember writing it my senior year. I was very frustrated and my woods teacher (bless his heart) knew that and he let me go into the auditorium and write.
Let me explain how this letter to God is relevant to this post.
Growing up, I always believed in God and I always knew that He was with me, wanting to talk and wanting to be present in my life. At the times when I had no friends, I knew that I had God and that was okay with me.
As believers in Christ, we are not perfect and I will be the first to admit that I can get distracted. Now, I understand that there are multiple things that can take your eyes off of Jesus, but for me there was one thing that time and time again caused me to break my eye contact with Jesus.
It was guys.
At a very young age, shortly or even before I was adopted, I would hang out with boys. Mostly, this happened because my sister had friends that had younger brothers. I would tag along and end up befriending their little brothers.
In grade school, I always leaned towards the guys more so than girls. They seemed to be less dramatic and they talked about cooler topics than girls did. I sat with them at lunch, played with them at recess and so on.
When middle school came along, I was unwillingly forced to make some other friends because that's when the guys became interested in girls. It became harder to be friends with only guys without being marked as a flirt. Despite that particular marking, however, I still hung out with guys and confided in guys more than I did girls.
Looking back, guys in elementary school, grade school and middle school were not a problem.
At least not at that point.
They became my distraction when I started high school.
Don't get me wrong, God was very active in my life during high school. That is why I can confidently say that if there was one thing that took my eyes off of God it was when I decided that guys no longer had cooties.
I started dating a guy my sophomore year of high school. My first "real" boyfriend. From the start of that relationship until after I recovered from the breakup halfway through my junior year of high school, I had never felt so far from God.
Guess who's fault that was?
Mine.
God didn't move, I did.
After that relationship, I believe that that was the first time that I realized that a relationship, without God at the center, is spiritually unhealthy.
Naturally, I started spending time with God again.
During my junior year of high school, while trying to focus on God, a few guys came along. So I dated them.
Let me tell you that every time I decided to date someone, they would unintentionally (on their part) distract me from God. And every time I got distracted, I knew and it drove me crazy.
It drove me so crazy that all of the relationships that I had my junior year only lasted a maximum of three weeks. Keeping in mind that I was not really in those specific relationships for the right reasons either.
But now a funny thing happens when you ask Jesus into your life and are baptized by the Holy Spirit. Once you ask Jesus into your heart and have the Holy Spirit in you, you no longer do things and go places on your own. The Holy Spirit is with you.
For example, if you're with a group of friends and they want to go to a party where you know there will be alcohol, drugs and all of those things, you will feel the Holy Spirit saying, "Let's not do this. Please let's not do this." It's no longer just you, it's you and Jesus.
That was my problem. Every relationship that I entered, I would take my eyes off of God. It's not that I would deny Him or anything like that, but I would just not spend time with Him or in His word like I normally would have.
It happened with every guy. Because I liked guys too much.
I liked the attention. I liked how they made me feel. But instead of being satisfied and resting in the love that God had for me, I tried to satisfy myself with guys. Honestly, I don't believe that I had a complete knowledge of The Gospel and hadn't known how God really views me at that point and that's why I looked for my satisfaction in guys.
I had the Holy Spirit living in me (still do). Because of that, even though I took my eyes off of God, God did not take His eyes off of me. The Holy Spirit was still in me. In which case, when I would get distracted, whether the relationship was going places it shouldn't have or not, the Holy Spirit was still there saying, "Let's not do this. Please, let's not do this."
Because none of those guys were who God had for me. They were just a distraction away from God.
My junior year was not the last time that I was distracted by guys. The letter I wrote to God at the beginning is clear proof of that.
Somewhere between the time that I walked out of the doors of that high school and right now as I'm sitting at my kitchen table typing this up, God transplanted my heart.
That's right, He literally transplanted my heart.
That came through the understanding of the complete Gospel and I could go into that more, but I'm not going to through this specific post.
Suddenly, I am no longer looking through the eyes of my own understanding but of God's.
I've learned the difference between happiness and true joy and I have found that true joy in Him. I have locked my eyes with His and He's taking me places in order to get things accomplished for His kingdom.
That's where I am going. I'm going where God wants me because His desires for my life have become my desires and there is no greater feeling than that. I love Him with all of my heart.
And I'm positive that the devil hates it that. He hates it, so he tries to find ways to stop me and distract me because he knows that because I have God in me, that I am a danger to the kingdom of darkness.
I have realized that guys are one way that he tries to distract me.
One thing that I decided after God transplanted my heart was that I was no longer going to take my eyes off of God because of a guy. If I was going to be with a guy, I'd better be able to keep my focus on God too otherwise it just wasn't going to happen.
Do I still get distracted by guys sometimes? Yes, I do. I'm not afraid to admit that because now I realize that at this very moment in my life, guys are just a distraction. Because I realize it, I can choose not to let it distract me.
What distracts you?
Once you can pinpoint and admit to yourself what exactly it is that distracts you, you can then choose to put a stop to it.
There's more though.
You can't just decide one day you're going to never let it distract you again. It doesn't work well like that. You have to make the choice and then follow through.
Romans 12:2 says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
It says to "be transformed BY the renewing of your mind". That's how we follow through. That's how we keep from getting distracted. It becomes much easier to keep your eyes focused on God when you are continually reading His Word on a regular basis.
I still get distracted. Chances are, you will too, but start making God's word a habit of intake. Let the Holy Spirit move through you and through the Word.
Make spending time with God and talking to God a habit. Make listening to God a habit. God never stops talking. He loves to talk. He just needs you to be willing to listen without distraction.
Because I can promise you that God is better than anything that is distracting you from Him.
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