counterfeitSo, since I just restarted blogging here, I decided to comb back through the archives and revisit some of my earlier posts. At first, I thought to myself, “Well, that’s not half bad” and “Hey, I like that one.” And then as I kept reading, and became less self involved (i.e. admiring my own writing), I realized something. I was a fraud. For several years of writing blog posts here, talking about the way God was moving in my life. A friggin fraud.

It’s not that I was lying. God was trying to do all the things I talked about. He was sharing the insights with me. Showing me the way. I just wasn’t moving. Not really. You see, I had intellectualized the call of God. I just hadn’t internalized it. I was processing it with my head, but not passing it along to my heart. I heard the call. I just wasn’t really answering it.

It was easy to share about the magical ways God was stepping into my life. What I didn’t share was how I was not able, capable or willing to do what He asked, what He really needed me to do. Because of that, I pretended and pontificated. Without conviction. Real action. True transformation. I was full of hot air, but my heart was frozen solid.

I eventually got tired of acting like I was working God’s plan, so I quit blogging. I quit praying. I quit seeking. I drifted. Fell off the wagon and was run over by it. And in the darkness, there was no light to be seen, no God to be heard, no path to follow.

And yet, God pursued me. And a world of heartache later, I’m back in that place. He brought me all the way back to where He had me years before. Face to face with what He really wants me to do. I don’t like how I feel when I read those old blog posts. I can’t stomach the person who wrote them, that person who was taking God’s wisdom and tossing it around with wordplay, refusing to apply any of it to his own life. What a fraud! What a phony! What a counterfeit Christian I was.

So now it’s time to live in the truth and walk in the light. Live authentically. Love my God. Love myself. Love my family. Love people. None of which I was doing with any degree of success before. I’m ready, willing and excited to change that.