Reflections on Summer

So the school year has begun. I cannot believe all that God's done in my life in this past year. As I look back and reflect I can see his hand at work through it all. God's SOVEREIGN will was that I would walk away. I would turn my back on Him and turn to other things. But I've come back. Grace has washed over my faults and I have really been seeking this sanctification, a response to what God has done for me through sending His son Jesus to die on the cross. I have been filled with the Holy Spirit more and more through the months and I've come to understand what that means.

This summer I met a girl. I wasn't looking for anything. I was simply seeking the Lord. But she started coming to our college Bible study every week and we gradually grew closer. There came a point where we were pretty much dating without the label. She is a beautiful woman with such a heart for God. She's so patient and kind and forgiving. But we differed on so many spiritual beliefs.

I went through a period of a couple weeks where I would just throw scripture in her face to prove her wrong and her feelings would be hurt and the conversations would end in anger. I knew in my head and heart that I was right, but the way I did it was completely wrong. I still am confident that the knowledge God has shown me through scripture is accurate. But knowledge puffs up and I became prideful in my wisdom of certain topics.

After those weeks of arguments I flopped to the other end of the spectrum and decided to just forget about spiritual beliefs because eventually God will bring us to the same page, right? Wrong. And I regret that decision. We grew closer and closer and her heart opened to me more and more. Mine to her as well.

A few days before I left for school I broke things off with her. I told her that I feel an absence of peace in my heart about it all and the majority of it is that I know in my mind that this would not work in the future if we both stick to our beliefs. If I believe with all my heart that God is sovereign but my wife disagrees, then what do we tell our kids? If I believe that a baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs upon salvation in Jesus Christ and my wife thinks that it's something to be sought and prayed over after the fact, then what do we tell our kids? It just would not work. And I knew that for a long time.

So I broke it off. And it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. Am I throwing away something that is beautiful? Potentially. But I know that God is IN CONTROL and has far better purposes for both of us. And if God's will for me, right now, is to be single and seek Him with all my heart each day, then so be it. I surrender EVERY aspect of my life to Him.