What do I believe?

There was a season in my life I wasn’t strong in my faith and what I believed. I had grown up in the church because my father was a pastor, but I reached a point in my young adult life where my faith needed to become my own. I had heard many amazing messages and had extraordinary experiences in the presence of God, and yet I remember the day I asked myself–“Why do I believe what I believe? Is it because my parents tell me to believe, or do I believe because ‘I’ believe?”

During this season of my life, I know it was not easy for my parents to let go and let me discover who I was. I went from being the perfect model pastors daughter, to moving out of their house, not going to church, and making choices and doing things my parents had not raised and/or taught me to do. Yet, it was in this very season where I found and ‘owned’ my faith.

After many months of rebel rousing, I visited a church I had only been to a couple of times after moving out. As I stood in the balcony that Sunday morning and the worship band played the song, “Open the Eyes of My Heart,” tears began to stream down my face and my heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest. The words of the song poured out of my mouth as the deep cry of my heart. “Open the eyes of my heart Lord, open the eyes of my heart, I want to see You, I want to see You. To see You high and lifted up, shining in the light of Your glory. Pour out Your power and love as we sing holy, holy, holy.” 

I don’t remember the message the pastor spoke on that particular Sunday. It was simply during that vulnerable moment in worship, where the love of the Father washed over me and opened my eyes.  In the presence of God, I became convinced of who He was, and my faith became my own that day–I believed.

Be encouraged today, if you are in a place where you are struggling to find your faith and believe, I encourage you to pray the words of the song, “open the eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see You.” I also pray that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:17-19