My Testimony:
The Faithfulness of God
“Where your focus goes, the power flows…”—Vincent
Newfield
“One thing that I have finally surrendered to God
and determine to continue to, even as I write this, is to leave ‘the girls’ in
God’s hands.”
~ Ryan Marks
Growing up
I always seemed to focus on girls before God. I accepted Christ at the age of
four, but didn’t take Him seriously until 5th grade. At the age
three I was already “girl crazy.” In fact, my mom says that I have always
“liked” girls.
It turns out that ‘like’ was equivalent with LUST
in my life.
As I mentioned, at three I was
already proven to be girl crazy. It was that year in my life when I came home
from preschool and asked my mom if we could change my sister’s name to Anna,
the name of the girl that I had a crush on.
Between the ages of five and ten or eleven I proposed
to three to five girls (I am not exactly sure how many anymore). However, in
fifth and sixth grade, God interrupted my proposal rush and started dealing
with me about how I “loved” girls more than Him. The reason that the Lord began
to deal with me on the subject is that during my fifth and sixth grade years I
had begun to grow close to the Lord. I served Him, received my prayer language,
started worshiping Him passionately, began to pray for others, began getting-up
by alarm to have a quiet time and started to write lyrics of praise.
Although I was growing in God, I
still didn’t want to give up “liking” girls. As a result I pursued a girl, who
is now a good friend, for about two years. However, I stopped
“following-my-heart” when her Dad got involved. Her Dad, a close friend and
mentor of mine now, was an instrument in the hands of God. I was scared to
death of him and his talk with my own father led to me backing off.
Because I did not listen to the Holy Spirit’s
promptings about putting girls ahead of Him, this confrontation had to come.
Because of disobedience to God I was reproved by my father on behalf of hers
and God dashed my own quest of following-my-heart for love like the world tells
us to do. I had to be corrected by God, through my father, before He could
bring our families so close together as He would in the future. Just a few
years after this incident, her father became my mentor and I found my past had
been forgiven and wasn’t mentioned.
Yet despite the Lord’s correction, I
hadn’t fully yielded, “completely surrendered.” Through seventh and eighth
grade, I only concealed the way I felt, so now my once bold form of proposal
became a carefully calculated mental sin of fantasy. I “liked” a few
girls during this time, only to have God expose my wrong mindset and motives
yet again.
In the midst of these challenges, I was
considered “ok.” People told me, that I was a pretty stable guy. As a man said
that to me recently, I laughed inside as my mind raced through a part of this
story of girl “trouble” and “obsession.”
In high school, I listened to the audio
book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris a couple of times and
immediately after doing so made a personal commitment to wait and see what God
would do in my “love life.” I can tell you that the journey through high
school and in college has not been easy. I’m I guy and have still been
attracted to a lot of young women, there’s been a couple that I thought I might
even end up marrying one day. Thankfully, however, my focus has remained on the
Lord’s approval and He has always guided me to His will.
What has kept me stable amidst the
emotional roller coasters of life is seeking the Lord and trusting Him. I can’t
say that I have all the answers and I also can’t say that I have completely
been through being single and am married for that has not happened yet, but I
want to encourage you to not seek a relationship, but to trust in the Lord and
focus on Him first and foremost. And then, when the time is right, God will
supply a wife if that is His will (Matt. 6:33, Prov 19:14).
As we go on in this
article, I want to share with you some principles that I have learned as in my
own journey with the Lord in this area of life.
Where your attention goes the
power flows.
You can be mad at God and others simply
because you didn’t understand why something happened.
You can be shaken, but won’t fall
and stay down when standing with the Lord.
If you continue blaming =
inability to love and you become negative, which in turn produces anger and
pride.
Thankfulness breaks you free of
negativity.
Move forward when God directs
you, otherwise, the grace won’t be there.
One Specific Example of During High School
The Lord had just told me to continue waiting and not
take action just a few weeks before. The Royal Rangers Pow Wow had come and I
was selected to ride in the van with the younger Discovery Rangers (3rd-5th
grade boys). I sat in the back and visited with a guy and he said something out
of nowhere which shocked me. Now, it was gossip, but I so wanted to believe
it; and yet the Holy Spirit inside said, “be cautious, do not just believe
this.”
The younger Ranger told me that the very girl I was just
impressed upon to WAIT on God for had a crush on me. He said that the word was
all over a particular ministry at my church. I tried to play it cautiously and
asked why he thought this. He responded by telling me that whenever I would
talk to this girl that she turned red. Ok, so what if she turns red? I never
noticed this and it really wasn’t even close to being a “solid” rumor, of
course are any rumors solid? NO!
Ok, so I knew that a 5th
or 6th grader was telling me this and I couldn’t just believe it, I
mean I was in my second year of high school, but I so wanted to.
I tried to put the
gossip in the back of my head and forget about it but I just couldn’t….it would
pop up again and again, like an annoying spam email. And the next day when I
got up it was still troubling me, so I got up and took a walk on the
campgrounds, a walk far back in the woods, well not really that far, I was on a
dirt road; so that no one could hear me, and I talked to God for thirty minutes
to an hour. I asked for courage to not give in to the temptation of believing
this rumor that I so badly wanted to believe. Even if it was true, Proverbs
warns of listening to gossip! I didn’t feel too much better after I talked to
God, but I was strengthened and now I have found the Scripture reference to
back up why. The Holy Spirit gave me this passage as I cried out to Him to remove
the burden of the gossip, even though I didn’t know chapter and verse.
But they
that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and
they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah
30:31 (KJV)
This brings me to the time that I am now writing
this, the journey isn’t done. God still wants me to wait, and the Divine Hand
of a Providential God has definitely been at work in this area of my life.
Despite my childish and ignorant responses at times, just look at how God was
still there working during those hard times . . . how HE continued to
lead me back towards the path as a Faithful shepherd.
He
that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them
shall have mercy. Proverbs 28:13 (KJV)
I have heard many stories about how people
‘used to be’ before they found God or how they didn’t trust HIM in a hard time.
I think that is what Proverbs 28:13 means: confessing, saying, “yes, I
have done this, but by the Lord’s grace may l learn from it, follow
HIS leading, and discard the blasphemous thoughts of this world, the
flesh and the devil, that are so entrenched in my mind.”
Truly, power does flow
where your focus goes. Let’s focus on the right things, and let the natural
power flow aid us instead of working against us, aiding our three-part enemy:
the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Seek the Lord first (Matt 6:33)!
I might not know a lot, but this I do:
God has been faithful, so why won’t HE continue to
be?
For since the beginning of the world men have not
heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee,
what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. Isaiah
64:4 (KJV)
That “beside thee” refers to revelation. What
God ‘shows us’ is the only way to ‘see-the-future,’ that is in a sense, what HE
did for Abraham and Noah.
As you have hopefully seen God has been faithful in my life and
He can and will be in your life. I don’t always understand His ways, nor can
you (Isaiah 55). Yet I say like David, how mysterious are your ways O Lord…And
you are Faithful!
God will give us the strength to stand if we seek
and focus on
Him
(1 Cor.
10:13, Matt. 6:33)
