My first answered prayer--Weary and Burdened

I felt like sharing part of my testimony while in church today and I thought about what proof I have that I can look back on my Christian walk and say, "Yes, this is God working in me!". I thought about that during worship and I realized that I wanted to share my first two answered prayers. Before I came to know Christ, I may have thought I was praying, or talking to God, but I think now that I was really talking to myself. I never really thought anyone was listening.

Then one day, at the Shipley's Do-Nut shop in College Station as I was talking with Daniel Eng, it happened. I came to an understanding of a verse and it hit me like Neo when he woke up from the Matrix.

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 (HCSB)


It was at that very moment, I realized that I WAS weary AND burdened and that I needed rest. The devil had been throwing these things on me telling me it was simply a part of life and everyone has this baggage. Debt, anger, loneliness, insecurity, helplessness, frustration. All these things the devil threw on my back and told me that it wasn't more than I could bear. But he lied to me. He put rocks in my bags and what had felt like a heavy backpack like I had gotten used to wearing in school had become a millstone that even Atlas himself (had he been real) could not support. It was at that very moment, feeling the weight of my sin and my failures and my willingness to hold on to them out of some misguiding effort of control, that I came to the truth that I needed a savior and that Jesus was that savior. I had but simply to ask Him to take control, to take my life in His hands. I had resisted thinking I was capable of saving my own life, but at that moment it just seemed like a bad joke. How could I have thought something so obviously untrue? Then I heard the devil in me resist, and try and put more weight on my shoulders. 

I then gave up. I thought of surrender. Not surrender to the devil, but to Jesus. I told Daniel that I wanted to pray for salvation and we prayed together and the moment I asked Jesus to take my sin away, it was gone.

Gone.

I could have turned my back and see that millstone not there anymore. Even my body felt lighter, like I could really live a life worth living. It was a tangible answered prayer and I love thinking about that day because it was the day I died.


And the day I rose again.