Exhortation Station

My brother Christopher has been encouraged by Yah with some things lately.  So, the following is something he typed up.  I urge everyone reading this post to listen closely — this is some of the most spiritually invigorating content I’ve read in a while!

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Hey y’all! Recently, I’ve been excited about having a renewed desire to walk closer with the Father and pursue a deeper relationship with Him. I just want to share some things that have sparked a hunger and determination in me to commit more of myself to Yah, and I pray that someone would be encouraged by this! There’s so much I could unpack on this subject, it’s hard to know where to start… Let me just start by sharing this in the context of some of my personal experiences that have led me to the place I am right now.

Soooo… For the past few years, my family and I have been trying to explore different ideas as to what type of career might be a good fit for me.  It has been very challenging for me to concentrate on academics, so the idea of pursuing a heady college degree has not seemed to fit my world right now. I was the guy that, when people would ask “So Chris, what are you going to be…”, I’d be like, “no idea”. Thankfully, I’m not the super-worrisome type, but I have always had something in the back of my mind saying “You’re just not there, Chris.”. …”not there” with your job plans, “not there” in your ability to tackle what life throws at you, “not there” in your spiritual walk with the Father. 

I often found myself asking the same questions…  What mountain do I need to climb to finally be “there”? Is it even worth trying when I’m so behind?  Why does everybody else have it together and not me?  Of course, I didn’t know the answer to any of this.  All I knew was I longed to have more of the things that matter in life. Have you been here before?

Then, one day as the four of us were in the car talking about having an appetite for the things of the Father, Yah showed me that I was putting off asking the most  important question of my life.

WHAT matters?

I asked myself this: When I’m 20, would I rather have a really well-paying job that I love and have a relationship with Yah that is on the backburner, or would I opt for a lowly job and a very deep relationship with the one who feeds even the sparrows? Then, Yah asked me an even better question: “If you get in a car wreck and die right now, would you rather leave with the things of this world or the things of My kingdom? 

Needless to say, the answer was finally getting to my heart. He is *all* that matters!! And now it’s up to me to own that fact, and run the race, Yah’s race. Praise Yah that his yoke is easy and his burden is light!  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does YHWH require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? -Micah 6:8  He entrusts some people with great earthly wealth, some with just a little, but He gives the opportunity to walk by his very side day-by-day to everyone!  Praise Yah!!! I am SO grateful to Him for this truth. 

With a new fire in my soul, I made a commitment to surrender myself fully to the Father’s plan and make changes in my life. I marked that day as a day I became different.

So what’s different now, in my life? Well, the way I start the day, for sure.  Distraction can be quite a battle, and for me it has been very critical to get my mind on Him first thing each day by reading His word but most importantly by pouring my heart out to Him in prayer.  This gives me a foundation at the beginning of every day to walk upon 24/7. So much blessing has come from just laying everything at His feet, just like the other day when I had a job to do at work that was stressful.  I needed to grind some expensive tool bits with a particular radius that had to be within a couple thousandths of an inch from the measurements given.  One of many easy mistakes could be very costly and ruin all 6 of them, the anxiety making it even harder to focus.  I silently said “Father, please give me peace right now. I might ruin these and lose my job, but as long as I’ve got You, that’s all that matters.”. And guess what? He gave me peace. And I didn’t even lose my job. 🙂 Thank you, Father!

I have a life-long journey ahead of me, but I am excited to take each step of it with Him at my side!!

If you have been where I was, I encourage you to ask yourself what matters in life. Were Peter and Andrew very successful fishermen?  Was Paul a world-renowned tent maker? Perhaps they were, but who knows? If they were just “well off” people, we wouldn’t even know their names, but what we do know is they had all that matters.

If you feel something’s missing and long for a deeper relationship with Yah, I encourage you to be decisive about finding the void and filling it with Him. I encourage you to decisively make changes and mark this day as a turning point in your life. I encourage you to ask the Father to pour out a huge appetite on you for His ways. I encourage you to pour out your heart to Him as your closest friend. I encourage you to go on a walk and verbally surrender your life to His perfect plan completely. I encourage you to view your relationship with Him as an integral part of your life and to talk to Him every day like a friend who is constantly walking by your side. I want to encourage you to lay the troubles and cares of this world at His feet and rejoice in the peace and truth that your walk with Him is all that matters.