My project for today is to write a permanent page for my blog which is commonly referred to as the ‘About Me’ page. A permanent page is accessed by a tab at the top as opposed to a blog entry that shows up on the ‘front page’. I’ve had no training in this….I’m just taking this new blog venture one step at a time.
Have you ever stopped to think how hard it might be to write about yourself? What to say? How much to say? What not to say?
So I’ve just written a paragraph that says this:
I come from a family line of people who love the Lord back to at least 4 generations–filled with ministers, church workers, seminary professors and presidents, as well as those in business who serve Him daily. I realize that’s a pretty incredible heritage and I’m very grateful for it! At the same time, that kind of heritage easily became a source of pride and ‘elite-ism’ that had to be stripped away–quite a painful process I might add. I had to learn Isaiah 64:6a (KJV) “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;”
I immediately thought I needed to blog about this because the process was an important part of my current walk with the Lord.
So often, all we know is the way we were raised and the ‘frame of reference’ we received about life as a child. This can be good and bad…even horrific for some. It’s often quite difficult to see things from a different perspective than the one you have been ‘trained’ to see.
I was a 4th generation Southern Baptist…raised to see life and God in a certain way.
My Granddaddy and his 8 brothers--8 of the 9 boys were in full time Christian service.
While I ‘walked an aisle’ as a 6 year old child, my true conversion experience came at age 24 late one night. A few years later I began to attend a ‘non-denominational’ Bible study called Bible Study Fellowship. At this Bible study we were not ‘allowed’ to even mention where we went to church. That was a first for me! All I ever knew was ‘Baptists were right and everyone else was wrong’. But we were taught in this study to allow God to speak to us from the Scripture…no commentaries, no notes…just us and God. That study started a process in me that continues to this day….that process is a search for Truth and a desire in my heart to remove any parameters from my mind that would limit Him in any way. In other words, I’ve asked God to ‘renew my mind’ with His thoughts and not mine; His ways above mine; and to keep me centered in His Truth.
So while there are many benefits of a Christian heritage, there are also ‘issues’ that come along with it. Often those of us with a rich heritage are looked at as having an ‘easy road’. That’s not necessarily true. I’ve had to ‘unlearn’ many things along the way and God has spent many years repairing my foundation to be based solely on His Truth. Will my understanding change again….absolutely! As humans, we never arrive at ‘Full Truth’ until we meet Him face to face!
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
