Our Adolescence Years

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/02/adolescent-faith

I remember during my adolescense years with God and it was longer than my natural adolescence years, I was in this constant battle whether to follow God wholeheartedly or follow my dreams and ambitions. During those years, the two appeared to be mutually exclusive. The spirit was rebellious like the Israelites during Moses’ time. I wanted to be with God and yet I wanted to pursue my own interests. I wanted to follow my heart that was not fully Christ’s yet then. I was also just beginning to know the world, just out of school and later university. I came from a small town and the city lights were bright. Also I then started to earn my own money, not much but still it was much, much more than what I used to have. For example, I could have more variety in terms of food and not limited to the less than RM2 meals when I was in University. We nearly always had RM1.60 mixed rice with 2 meat and one vege dishes plus Chinese tea and soup as our lunch. I remember too when I first started travelling for work that I was trying hard to save the per diem allowance of thirty five US dollars (a princely sum then) by eating bread for dinner!

During those years, God was close and yet far. As I said, I wanted the things of the kingdom but also the things of the world. Didn’t quite figure out how to go about both then and thus this constant battle within me. I go to church and serve God, but my heart was very much drawn to the attractions of the world. Thus although I knew God, my heart was not fully His. But as can be seen in today’s ODB, God knew we will fully give Him our hearts one day.

Later I learnt that following God and our own ambitions need not always be mutually exclusive as we could commit our ambitions to God and let Him sanctify them and our hearts and lives. We could live in the glory of His presence and yet pursue our interests. In the end, it still boils down to Matthew 6:33 – “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these shall be added unto you”.

Everyone of us will have our own adolescence years with God. The Israelities during the wilderness and one whole generation had to perish before Joshua and Caleb (only two from that generation) led the remaining into the Promised Land.

The question today is are we still in our adolescence years in God when our natural years are well advanced, well past adolescence? Adolescence by definition is the transition from child to adult. Are we still transitioning? I think it is clear that we cannot forever be a child or adolescent in our spiritual life. We need to step up and step out in faith and take on the challenge to grow up and that can only mean that we need to determine that we will follow God with all of our heart, all of our soul and all of our strength. We need to be a living sacrifice. We need to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. Dive into the fire and no longer stand at the peripherals, at the outer circle.