But that achievement came at a great price.
You see, every time I would be prompted to witness, I still refused to obey. It was a persistent, steadfast rebellion that trumped all my best pep talks and all my good intentions. I was in a cycle: I prayed for souls and desired them to be saved, I was faced with a witnessing opportunity and turned it down, and then I was filled with remorse and vowed to actually witness the next time.
God was very patient with me through all this, but finally He laid down the law. "You know that sweet relationship you've been enjoying with me? Well, if you don't straighten up, I'm going to have to just withdraw that from you. You know, I'm very grieved that you haven't been obedient, and I cannot let you continue in this course." *
A pang of dread shot through my heart. The thought of losing the sweetest love in the world suddenly made me realize how much it meant to me. Oh, take out my eyes, destroy all my possessions, and leave me hungry every day--but don't take that! I prayed internally. Yet, at the same time, I knew that it was the very love of God that threatened to bring this upon me. I figured He had purposely allowed me to experience His sweetness in order to have a really effective bargaining tool in the moment that He really needed it. He knew how stubborn I was and how unlikely it was that I would EVER be raised out of my current state without some really good motivation. So He struck at the very core of my heart and gave me a very helpful set of choices. "Either you witness when I tell you to (which isn't really that bad, and is actually going to be fun and fulfilling once you get into it), or you disobey (which is going to come with horrible consequences)."
The next few witnessing opportunities came along, however, and I failed them. Flunked them. Kept quiet. Didn't obey God. And in the same measure, I began to lose that delightful, romantic, adventurous LOVE that I had experienced for the past few months. "Noooooooooo," I thought. "Why am I doing this?" And yet there the facts stood. I had chosen that course, even after I had been duly warned.
A few days later, I flunked yet another opportunity, and if I had heard an audible voice, God could not have been more clear: "You have one more try. One. There is no reason for you to be acting this way. You can either do it my way, or I'll just leave you to your own devices and let you live a miserable, mediocre life. You pick. But don't flunk this next opportunity."
Talk about instilling the fear of God into a person's life! I think hearing that would be enough to shake the hardest heart.
I witnessed.
I witnessed again.
And again.
And along the way, a few more failures crept back in, but FINALLY, the pattern was changing.
Of course, I still had to suffer the effects of my past choices. The law of sowing and reaping doesn't halt at life milestones. To this day, I am only enjoying a fraction of the sweetness and closeness of the love of the LORD that I had experienced before. But finally, I trust, I have some obedience in my life in this area.
Thus the Lord saw me safely through the crisis until He saw His will formed in me. But the Master Professor was far from finished with His pupil.
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*Note: I want to make it very clear that God did not threaten to withdraw HIMSELF from me, but rather that the enjoyment of His presence would evaporate, the communion and fellowship would be broken, and the feelings of love would be withdrawn. God knew this would be a very motivational tool and used it as such, while maintaining the basic fact of our relationship intact.
