Exchanging the Truth

There was a time in my life when I was searching for truth.  I was in my early 20s, and I just wasn't sure that the truth I had been immersed in my entire life was legitimate.  I don't know that I fully turned away from God, but I definitely questioned if Christianity was all it was cracked up to be.

I read the Koran, I studied yoga as a religion (at it's core it is truly religious, not just good exercise,) I read about Hinduism, and Buddism, and even Native American beliefs.  I wanted to see what I was missing.  What I found was that all of these religions have some similarities with Christianity.  There are a lot of mythological stories that sound a lot like things I had grown  up hearing in church.  They're all basically the same.  At least that is what I convinced myself.

Yet nothing satisfied my deepest heart longing.  Nothing comforted in the moments of despair.  Nothing satisfied the hunger that was eating away at my soul.  There was aching, longing, calling within me that I couldn't deny.  When I would go to church I would just weep, hearing God's word and singing praises to my Creator broke my heart.  No amount of reading, studying, meditating, or explaining was as sweet as the coming of my Savior.  My brother David Platt says it so well:

What would you think if I told you that the God on the top of the mountain actually came down to where we are?  What would you think if I told you that God doesn't wait for people to find their way to him, but instead he comes to us? ... Let me introduce you to Jesus.

I can think back to the moment in my life when I realized that all religions weren't the same.  It wasn't a day I can pinpoint, but it was about a year process of my Father running out to meet me on the road, clothing me in His righteaousness, declaring me His child, and bringing me into the family so that I could feast on the nourishing Word.  He has disciplined me, brought me low, and forgiven the things that I could never have found forgiveness for through my own actions or made up righteousness.  He has given me new life, and declared me worthy of salvation not because I am worthy, but because He is God and He declares it.  The more that I feasted on the meat of His word, the more my hunger for it grew.  But it wasn't the gnawing hunger of a lost and lonely heart, it was the hunger of fire shut up in my bones!

Then my Creator lead me to Romans, so that I could understand His story better.  It took me a long time to get past Chapter 1.  Here is the sweetness that broke my heart open even further.

 ¹⁸For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²²Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. ²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.²⁵For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

 How often have I professed to be wise and yet exchanged the truth of God for a lie?!  How often have I chosen a pasteurized version of the gospel where I choose Jesus because I realized I need a friend?  How often have I refused to see His setting me apart, His choosing me, His blood on my behalf, all because that was His will, not my goodness?  How often have I worshiped the creature and called it the creator?

I have studied my heart out, but God uses the foolish things of this world to confound this idiot who thinks she is wise.  I have decided what I want to be as a wife to my husband, but God uses my weakest parts to bring glory to him in my marriage.  I have decided that I will have children now, but God has made this barren woman rejoice in His house as the joyful mother of other people's children.  I have searched for truth, but Truth found me.