I grew up in church, learning about the Bible and God was just something that was part of my life. I went to church every Sunday that it almost became more routine than a thirst for God and His word. In fact, I even fell asleep during sermons and Sunday school. I came to church every Sunday because my mom brought me, my friends were there, and it was just normal to go. There was even a time where I was mad at God for “not answering my prayers” and thought that prayer was useless. I forgot that sometimes when God answers our prayers, the answer is no, and I simply thought he hadn’t answered because I didn’t like his answer. Growing up in church and hearing the same stories a lot of the time, I failed to dig deeper into those stories and really read them verse by verse, I didn’t put in effort to even try a grasp at what God was trying to say or foreshadow. It wasn’t until I went to Friday Fellowship where we go into small groups and read the stories verse by verse, explaining and trying to understand each verse, that I started to understand that there was so much more to these stories than what gets told in children’s versions.
I accepted Christ during our church’s 2019 Youth Winter Retreat. I was supposed to do it the night before, but I fell asleep before I did it. When I woke up, before I even got out of bed, I accepted Christ, which is weird because it popped into my head the second I woke up and usually I don’t think of anything that early. Ever since then I really noticed God speaking to me through His words. Anytime I would start reading my devotions after stopping for a long time, the story and lesson always applied to what was occurring in my current life. A specific example is when I sent my student council representative application to the wrong email, but by the time I noticed, it was past the deadline. This made me feel a bit down because I honestly wanted to win a spot on student council. That night I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t read God’s word yet, so I read Our Daily Bread. The story talked about how when we’re disappointed we can lean on God. In that moment I realized that God really does talk to us, and He does it quite often once you look closely at the events in your life.
At first, I was unsure about getting baptized because I felt like I still had so many questions. When I went to talk to my counselors about it, they answered my questions and explained to me what primary and secondary issues are. This made me realize that what I have are secondary issues, and though I have questions, they don’t make me believe in God any less. That’s when I realized that I’m never going to not have questions and I’m never going to know everything. If I were to wait until I know everything, I’d never get baptized. It also made me realize that eternal life is a gift, I can’t earn it, and God doesn’t need anything from me other than my faith. All I have to do is admit that I’m a sinner, which I am, because no one is perfect. If we didn’t sin, then Jesus would’ve never had to die on the cross to get rid of our sin. So I made the decision to accept His gift, confess that I’m a sinner, repent from sin, believe in Him, and keep Him as #1 in my life.