A Dark Rebellious Life (Part 1)

Titus 2:14

He offered Himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people He can be proud of, energetic in goodness.

I guess life was never altogether easy. My parents argued a lot growing up. Dad seemed to always be upset or angry over something. At age 12 they divorced. I needed my parents the most during that time, just coming into my teenage years and all the emotions and hormones I would be experiencing. I was left without either parent, for years. Both of them were so wrapped up in their pain, they couldn't see or even begin to know how to handle mine. Divorce is devastation. It very well, may be the best and healthiest thing that parents can do for us and our families, yet I think a lot of praying to God is required to come to that conclusion, because  divorce leaves destruction and wreckage in its wake. 

We as a society are so used to divorce now that we have become apathetic towards the word and pretty much unfeeling towards the destructive emotions and tearing down that comes with it. My belief is at this point our generation first starts to experience the hardening of our hearts.

We started disobeying our parents, and of course God, because if God is Abba - the ultimate father; why would we listen to him? We weren't even listening to our own father. He failed us, so what would be any different with God? Our fathers were failures, God is a failure too. We knew He was a failure because He didn’t stop this awful divorce. He allowed us to be swallowed up wholly by misery and the absence of love in our families. We thought He would protect us. We then stood in the middle of the storm and watched everything we ever knew, every anchor we had in this life, being swept away. Protection went out the window. We started to lash out and not listen to our parents. We stopped listening to that small quiet, reassuring God voice that dwells within us all. This disobedience became the first layer of crust around our hearts and our first experience of separation from God. 

Then we became selfish. We believed our parents owed us and everything they sacrificed to give to us; we took for granted. We believed God owed us for this pain too. We had torment that made us believe we were entitled. They owed us big time for the ache and separation they had caused. And God owed us because He allowed for that separation. Our parents ruined our home and our family and because of that; they owed us anything we wanted to make up for ruining our lives. This sense of entitlement is the second layer of crust to wrap around our once soft and open hearts. Selfishness is our second experience of separation from God.

The third and most damaging separation from God is distrust. It is the final layer of crust that hardens our heart so much that we no longer need God.  

Before this divorce, we trusted as innocently and purely as a child. We knew our parents, they knew us and we didn’t question them. We knew they would always lead us down the right path. Because of this we knew God and he knew us. We knew he knew us and we didn’t question Him. We had a faith that could move mountains. Now we didn't know who or what to trust. Trust and faith go hand in hand. And trust and faith went out the window. We lost trust and faith in our parents and we were forced to become self-reliant. Because of that self-reliance, we found that we needed nothing and no one outside ourselves, least of all God.

  Now I am not saying divorce is the only cause of the hardening of our hearts, because abuse is a big one too, mental, physical, sexual, emotional abuse can also bring on all of the above reasons. I just personally picked divorce because I am a product of it and with the sheer number of marriages failing; I know without a doubt, I am not the only one. The statistics speak for themselves. Over 50% of marriages end in divorce.

Once our hearts become fully hardened we are tied off from Spirit. We can no longer hear what God is trying to say to us. We start fully listening only to ourselves and in this cutting of Spirit we are thrown into the pit of this world without the proper compass. This is the beauty and danger of our current generation for it allows us to make our own choices and make our own mistakes. Yet, due to our lack of outer support, we usually learn the hard way. We can find our place in this world, but we do so by trial and error. This leaves us slaves to sin. Sin literally translated from Hebrew is “missing the mark” meaning; missing the point of life. We have no one to help us navigate through the darkness by shining light where we need it and so we find ourselves in the middle of a dark rebellious life. 

After my parents got a divorce, my mom had to start working and providing for our family; while trying to have a life so my sister and I kind of got lost in the middle of that daily struggle. I started staying with friends and their families to find some sort of normalcy. I also started smoking because that was something my parents did and it also brought normalcy. I went in search of a home and I found it at a friend’s house. Her family was Christian and went to church. When I was 13 years old I was formally introduced to God. I took right to it, surrendering to His love and also surrendering to the fact that my mother and father would not be the ones to protect me, but God would.

Matthew 10:39

Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.