A Surprising Epiphany About My Faith [What God Taught Me This Year]
Some years I burn through highlighters. It seems that selling all my possessions and buying pallets of highlighter pens is the only way I can keep up with my Bible highlighting in those profound years where my walk with God just keeps reaching new heights. In those years of growth, my Bible drips yellow ink like it’s been dipped into a vat of that nostalgic Sunny D.
Sometimes I feel like I’m writing my own commentary or study Bible, with all the cross references and notes I’m pumping out. It’s like I’ve discovered hidden treasure in my backyard. 365 days of opening my Bible and the Lord letting me in on all the secrets that life has to offer. In these times, I rejoice in finding amazing truth, after amazing truth, after amazing truth.
But alas, how would I know what an epic year of Bible discovery looks like if I didn’t have an underwhelming year to compare it to? My friend, 2024 was that kind of year for me. I mentioned to my wife on multiple occasions that I didn’t feel like I was growing, and didn’t feel like God was showing me anything cool. Was I doing something wrong?
As far as I knew, nothing had really changed. I spent the time with God, I used the SOAP Bible method, I studied certain portions of scripture out, but I don’t feel overall like 2024 had given me any big nuggets of truth. Until I realized, very recently, that 2024 was actually a more productive year for my spiritual growth than I thought. I didn’t see any big nuggets of truth because God was instead, showing me flakes.
I remember gold panning as a young boy up in the mountains of the Santiam national forest in Oregon. My cousins and I were hard at work swirling those pans around, desperately looking for those precious little nuggets of gold. Yet, time and time again, the nuggets eluded us. However, our hard work would not render us completely void of payoff.
Sometimes we were successful, it just looked a little different than what we had initially imagined and worked so hard for. From time to time we would catch a glimmer of hope, a little shining of victory. You’d dip your finger into the mix of clay and sand to find little flakes of gold. Was this a nugget? Was this a quantity so massive they’d have to invent a new unit of measurement to properly calculate the value? No. But it was gold, and we worked hard to find it.
That’s how 2024 went for me. Although it seemed like my spiritual growth was at a standstill, God was quietly providing me with little flakes of gold that would all add up to a huge perception shift for me. You see, with some of my misunderstandings of God in recent years, I really set out this last year to know God better. I was reading classic Christian powerhouse books like “Knowing God”, “Desiring God” and “The case for Christ”. I started to better see who God is, and what my relationship to Him means.
I was really focusing on passages of scripture like Ephesians 1, which show us Christians are chosen by God, empowered to bring Him glory, and are so blessed to be adopted as a son or daughter of the King of Kings. This is all a current reality, not just a light at the end of the tunnel.
I saw passages that show Paul looking forward to departing from this world to be with God, Moses seeing Him face to face, and Abraham being called His friend. All of these were little, subtle truths that helped me stop being so focused on me and instead lift Him up.
The biggest epiphany I have had this year is just how good God really is. I used to be so hyper focused on rejoicing in escaping hell. That was basically the main thought for presenting the gospel as well. When in reality, salvation, and knowing God is so much more than that.
Yes, thank you Lord that I get to escape the fires of hell forever, but more importantly, thank you that I get to spend time with you for all eternity!
Friend, this year was much bigger for me than I thought. This year, I began shifting my focus from just escaping hell, to fully taking on my identity of being a child of God. Yes I get to escape hell because of what Jesus did for me, but what is even crazier is I get to be His son! He is MY Father!
This year I learned that my focus need not be on me, but on Him. My entire thought process has shifted from a performance based walk with God to a face down, awestruck , worship of Him.
It’s not about how many souls I can lead to Christ, how many articles I can write, how many sermons I can preach, or how many books I can publish.. This year I learned that Jesus is the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. This epiphany came quietly, but it was the most profound thing I’ve discovered since initially coming to the saving knowledge of salvation.
