The Motions

Here’s my little product insert of the day.  K-Love Radio—a great and encouraging radio to get you through the day. 

So why do I mention this?  I find myself listening to this radio station often... and every now and again I hear a song that really just gets to me.  Today I was listening when “The Motions”-by Matthew West came on.  Part of the lyrics read:

This might hurt, it's not safe
But I know that I've gotta make a change
I don't care if I break,
At least I'll be feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

No regrets, not this time
I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I'm finally feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

You know when a song basically just sums up what you have gone through?  This one does it for me. 

A little bit of my background:

I grew up in a wonderful Christian home (and for that I am truly blessed).  I went to Awana clubs, Sunday School, basically you name it I was there.  When I was 4 years old, I accepted Christ into my life through the help of my older sister.  Now I was young, but I was a little missionary and brought friends to church and was not ashamed of what I believed at all. 

When I was in 5^th Grade, God decided to put my faith to a test.  He sent trial after trial, and unfortunately I seemed to fail the test.  I just couldn’t understand why this was all happening to me.  So I decided if God couldn’t keep my life in line, I would do it myself.  

Now here is where the song comes into play.  I continued to go through all the motions (I mean I was the “Christian girl” at school... I had to keep that up right).  But my heart was not in the right place at all.  

In Summer 2004, I was at camp when something just hit me... I couldn’t do this myself.  I needed God’s love to set me on fire again and I needed to give God control, rather than just going through the motions.  

Once I gave God control of my life once again, I couldn’t believe the peace that overwhelmed me.  Even when I wasn’t sure about things I believed God when he said, “I know the plans I have for you... plans to give you a hope and a future (Jer.  29:11)”.  

Four years later, God decided to do another time of testing in my life (I find in my life... when it rains it pours).  This time, rather than turning away from him, I let God have control (even though I could not see anything good coming out of this).  

Don’t get me wrong... I still have days where I just cannot see where God is going with stuff... but looking back on past experiences I have seen pieces of his plan for me... and let me tell you—he does a much better job with my life than I could ever do.  

One other thing that jumps out at me from this song...  it says that “this might hurt”.  God never said that when you accept him into your life, he makes everything better and you never hurt again.  In fact... we are warned that we will put through trials and persecution... but Jesus was put through death... 

Just a thought..  if you are reading this and maybe going through trials all I can say is learn from my mistakes... stick with God—don’t just act like the “Christian girl” as I did, really live it out... our life is short on earth, make it count.