Why I’m Blogging: Because We Are Not Orphans

Last time I wrote about conviction.  Simply put, when God speaks, we need to listen and act upon what we are given through the Spirit.  I am writing this blog because I acted on an impression I was given by the Spirit.  I know this impression didn’t come from me or my own thoughts because I had no desire to write publicly about my personal experiences.  However, once I felt convicted that this was what I was being led to do, I had a strong desire to be obedient.

My process of separating myself from the LDS church started about a year ago.  It was a slow process at the beginning because it took me awhile to feel sure of what I was doing.  Even after I felt sure, there were many times I felt uneasy about living without the security blanket of the church and I struggled with my decision.  I never thought it was the wrong decision, I just thought that it was going to be harder than my previous life and it has been.  But it has brought me more joy and peace than my previous life did.

I have been single since January 2014 when my ex-husband moved out of the house. He and I are still great friends to this day and will always be because we respect and care for each other.  Things were just meant to go in a different direction and we are both sure that is what God wanted for us.  He is now married to a wonderful woman that is a great step-mother for Olivia.  There are still some rough days when I struggle with being alone.  I am a very affectionate and talkative person and the lack of human contact and companionship has been difficult for me to deal with.  Sometimes I really enjoy the quiet peacefulness in my life but other times I really miss having a friend who lives there to talk to.

One day last October I was having one of those rough days and was feeling very discouraged and lonely.  I was at work and was feeling lost, adrift, a ship without a rudder.  I felt positive about the direction my life was taking but was still scared to be traveling in unknown territory.  My two greatest supporters throughout this process have been my ex-husband and a dear friend of mine.  On this particular day, I had very similar conversations with both of them.  I shared my feelings of discouragement and loneliness, which they had heard many times before.  They both told me that God needed to be enough for me, that I needed to stop focusing so much on what I didn’t have.  

While I was thinking about their advice the thought struck me that I felt like an orphan, like I didn’t belong to anyone and that I didn’t know where my home was.  Shortly after this, my ex called me again and said he felt impressed to tell me I was supposed to be searching for God’s purpose for my life.  I lamented that my purpose in life was to be a wife.  He said you have other purposes besides that.  I admitted that I had been pondering about my purpose for several days already.

Immediately following this conversation, a man that I had been communicating with on a dating site was texting me.  This man does not live locally and we hadn’t met in person but he was pressuring me to commit to a relationship with him.  I had a very uneasy feeling about him and I wasn’t going along with what he wanted so he had gotten very belligerent with me and very demeaning, calling me names.  I was feeling sorry for myself, wondering why it seemed a good relationship was so hard to find when the phrase “my peace I leave you, my peace I give unto you” came into my mind.

Often, pieces of scriptures come in my mind and I know it is God urging me to find the source and read more.  So I looked in my bible app to find this particular phrase.  It happens to be from John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let your hearts not be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” I felt immediate relief from my worries.

I decided to read the entire chapter, where Jesus is saying farewell to his apostles and they are scared that he is leaving them and they don’t think they can survive.  With tears streaming down my face I got to verse 18.  “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” just hit me so hard and I knew that God was speaking directly to me.  I shut my office door so nobody would worry about me and I had a good cry.   I thought to myself I should start writing down all these spiritual experiences I had been having in a journal so I can remember them when I have a rough day.  Then I got a strong impression “No you’re not supposed to keep this to yourself”, that I was supposed to write it for others. I felt immediately convicted that God was directing me to do this for Him, and that this was one of His purposes for me.  (Over the next two days, topics and ideas of things to write came flooding into my mind so fast that I started keeping notes in my phone.)

I continued reading John 15, and I was on verse 6, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown in the fire, and burned.”, when the guy from the dating site started harassing me again.  I replied that I was walking with God, that I only wanted a man that would walk with me on the same path.  His demeanor suddenly changed and he wished me luck and said that he wouldn’t stand in the way of one of “God’s children”.  Then he said he was trying to do good with everyone so that he would be good with God and I told him “the only one you have to be good with is God, then once you are you will automatically do good for others. That is backwards of what my old church teaches, but they’ve got it wrong”.  I felt such a conviction from saying this to him and knew that my calling was to help others who were searching for God as I had been.  The whole point of this blog is to tell you that God is all you need; a personal relationship with the Savior and faith in God are all that is required.

It isn’t easy to go out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself but God always prepares a way for you when He asks you to do something.  I am absolutely certain of this and I have to keep reminding myself that when I want to be lazy or when I start to feel I’m not up to the task. There is nothing that God can ask us to do for Him that won’t make us better and bring us closer to Him if we are willing to put forth the effort while keeping Him in the lead.  I am so grateful for the experiences I’ve been having that keep convicting me of what I’m doing with my life.
 

Living a Life of Conviction

First off, let me say that I respect and love LDS people, especially my family and friends. They are good people who are following a specific set of guidelines because they believe that it will lead them to eternal life with God. That is the greatest goal we should all be pursuing in this life. I am not writing this blog to try to convince anyone of what is true because only God can do that through the Holy Spirit. This blog is for me to share my own personal experiences as I was instructed by God. I was actually going to write this post about the experience that led me to start blogging but thoughts about conviction kept swimming around in my head this morning and I took that as a sign.

What does it mean to be convicted by the Spirit? Oftentimes we think of conviction as something negative such as being convicted of a crime. The Holy Spirit can certainly confirm to us God’s conviction of our sins to help us turn to repentance (see John 16:8). But I wanted to talk about another way the Spirit convicts us, and that is to follow God. Another word we can substitute for this kind of conviction is “convinced”. One of the Spirit’s duties is to convince us of truth. He acts as a guide to show us what God wants us to do, what our purpose and callings are in this life, what talents God has given us to use for His purposes.

John 16:13-14 (ESV), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

I used to hear the phrases “convicted by God” or “convicted by the Spirit” frequently from my non-LDS Christian friends. I didn’t really understand what they were talking about at the time but I understand the concept now through many experiences which have led me to a conviction of what I’m doing with my life. My friends would suggest that maybe I wasn’t convicted in my beliefs because I seemed unsure of a few points or even whether I really had a personal relationship with God. I was somewhat offended at the time, but I realize now they were right and their gentle nudging helped motivate me to study and seek spiritual conviction.

When you are convicted by the Spirit, there is no room for doubt that God has spoken to you and that He wants you to act. I have been convicted by Him on several occasions, such as when deciding what church to attend (or not attend), what His purpose is for my life right now, and my decision to move away from the LDS church. Once you feel this type of conviction in your soul you have two choices, ignore it or act upon it. My own experience was that as soon as I was certain of what I had received, I felt a strong desire to act immediately. I felt like I was suddenly on fire with the Spirit. I wanted more than anything to please God and I felt joy knowing that He was giving guidance directly to me.

We need to be sure we are following what God wants instead of putting our own thoughts and desires into action. Deuteronomy 12:32 (ESV) says, “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.” Some of the guidance I’ve received has been a test of my faith but I know that it is what God wants me to do for Him. Writing this blog has been challenging because I don’t share my personal life with many people, and I sometimes get writers block because I am so conscious of being “careful to do” what God wants me to do with my writing. I know that He gave me a gift for writing and helped me develop it at a young age for a purpose and I think this is part of it. There may be more He reveals to me in the future, but for now I am following what I received.

The whole point of living a life of conviction is that you will feel more joy, peace and comfort in your life than by any other way. If you have already accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Redeemer, then you have felt this peace before. My challenge to you is to find out what God’s purposes are for you through prayer and listening for the Spirit. Once you hear from Him you will find yourself convicted and re-energized to serve Him. That’s exactly what has been taking place in my life.