Recently Andy asked people to share their stories of their pivotal circumstances that helped grow their faith. They had a video camera set up in a room nearby.

My pivotal circumstance was my divorce. It was, of course, a very unpleasant experience, one I would not recommend as a method for personal growth. But the emotional and spiritual upheaval brought on by this crisis caused me to reevaluate my life and beliefs in a way that eventually made my faith deeper and stronger than before. It took an event like this to wake me up and shake me out of my “mechanical Christianity”. It made it painfully obvious that I could not live the Christian life in my own strength.

This didn’t happen overnight. I spent several months feeling sorry for myself, trying to fix the other person in the relationship, asking God “why are you letting this happen to me”, and other equally futile lines of thought. I don’t think there was a breakthrough moment, it was more like a process. One thing I now realize is that, when you’re broken, you’re more open to what God has to teach you. When everything seemed fine, I didn’t need God. I left Him on the shelf, He was my backup plan.

Anyway, I went to tell my story and found that I left a lot of stuff out, mainly the negative stuff– how bad I felt during the process, the wrongs done to me. It was hard to even remember them, partly because the divorce was a long time ago, but also because those issues stopped bothering me a long time ago. I know people who love to revel in how bad things are for them, they love to rehearse the wrongs done to them in their own mind, and even tell others how terrible the person is who did the wrong.

I spent a little time doing that and I found that holding a grudge against someone doesn’t hurt them. Most of the time they go their merry way completely unaware of any bitterness toward them. A bitter and unforgiving spirit hurts ME, not the other person. It wastes my mental, emotional and spiritual energies. It keeps me bound and eats away at my spirit like a cancer.

The song “Let it go” by the Newsboys sums it up perfectly.

Lyrics here http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/N/newsboyslyrics/newsboysletitgolyrics.htm

So I’m thankful that I did such a lousy job of sharing my experience on video. It reminds me of what a great job God did in healing me by giving me “blessed amnesia”.

You can’t hold a grudge, the grudge holds you.
Bitterness binds, forgiveness frees.

1. Obedience wasn’t broken in the garden, faith was.  Why do we need to grasp this in order to understand our relationship with God?

2. Spiritual growth is primarily about growing in our trust of God which involves learning more of who God is and living it out.  Why is it that a lot of Christians measure growth just by knowledge?  Why do these two need to be in balance?

3. We spend time building relationships with the people we trust the most, yet how can we say we trust God if we do not spend time building a relationship with Him?

4. Why is it that we only trust God when things are going the way we want them to?  Do we really trust Him if that is our line of thought?