MiXchange | MiJournal
See how God took me and saved me from myself
I was born in 2002 to parents who loved the Lord and who went to church. For most of my life, I grew up in Heritage of Faith and have known Pastor John and Pastor Sharon since I was born. Growing up, with the influence of my parents and church, I learnt to love the Lord and want to be obedient to Him.
However, despite my love for the Lord and a passion for Jesus in my heart, my time at school dampened that zeal as I was presented with the academic flare that the world had to offer. I was captured by academic performance which stemmed from a natural ability and a drive to achieve my academic goals, which was perfection. This was greatly encouraged by the people around me in school including friends, teachers and tutors. Although I did not realise it, my own pursuits to perform in academics were exclusive to God’s plan for my life. The only way that I really included Him was in asking Him to bless me in my own pursuits and to promote me in my academic career. I also did not recognise it at the time, but as my life was being centred around achieving specific goals, I gradually removed anything that did not contribute to them from my life.
Although I was at church every Sunday and still loved the Lord, my life was not centred around His plan for me. Although I heard the messages and to a degree maintained Christian standards, I was not active in applying what the Lord was telling me in my daily life. Although I went to prayer meetings on a Tuesday night and prayed each morning, my days and weeks were not directed by God, but by what my school told me had to be done to perform better.
It was in this state of self-pursuit, being on my way to studying to become a medical doctor and on the path to being consumed by the systems of the world that God had mercy on us as a church and brought the messages of I Will Take the Children.
Although according to the world I was doing well- I had my career ahead of me, I loved God and I had determination, God began to expose the darkness that I was living in.
During mid-2020, in the middle of my matric year, God began to give Pastor Sharon messages about how He wants to take the children for Himself, for His plans and for His purposes. He showed us out of the Word of God how people make their own plans for their lives without asking Him with a meagre justification of asking God to bless them. Even though I was living like this, the pennies weren’t quite dropping yet.
It was only after a few months of these teachings and a conversation with Pastor John and Pastor Sharon that the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart to, at that moment, say that I was coming to MiXchange in Witbank. This was as much of a shock to me as it was to those who were supporting me in my own ways.
The following year, 2021, as a group of MiXchangers, we went on a journey with God, in some cases quite literally, but throughout the whole year, it was a spiritual journey with God.
As the year progressed, I realised that God wasn’t releasing me to go and study and in 2022 I found out why. Although 2021 was an important year for me to give my first to God and to lay a foundation for my life, it was in 2022 that I had a greater recognition of living my life completely for God and with God, not just with God but for myself.
In coming to this recognition and responding by giving God my yes, God has now filled my life with good things. He is filling my life with encounters with Him and living a life of eternal purpose. While at school, I lived a life with temporal purpose, I am so grateful to God that He has given me an opportunity to completely serve Him which has rewards, on the earth, but even more so, it is a life that will stand eternally before God as a life lived for and with Him.
Besides the way that God is helping me to grow spiritually, He has blessed me with an abundance of relationships, a life of adventures and a life of being conditioned.
My perspective of life continues to change and I continue to grow as I give my obedience to God. I am on a journey with God to new discoveries. Although I will never arrive, I continue to run my race with patience, looking unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2) and my determined purpose now is to know Him (Philippians 3:10).
I love the Lord my God. I love Jesus and although it took a while, I have made the decision to make Jesus not only my Saviour but also the Lord over all my life.
