“If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the LORD your God, then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. (Deuteronomy 28:58-59, NASB)
I never thought there would be a cost to choosing not to walk with God, but there is.
I learned this the hard way.
I had committed my life to God at age eleven but all through my teens and twenties, I had forgotten Him, choosing to go my own way. I was smart enough, capable enough, talented enough. I didn’t need Him, I figured.
Religion was for the weak willed.
During my sophomore year of college, my choice had caught up with me. All that I had planned to achieve and accomplish in my own strength had fallen by the wayside. I was flunking out of the Ivy League school I had worked hard to get admitted to. My budding acting career was going down the toilet as my acting agency had abruptly closed business. And I was sinking into a deep depression which I couldn’t get myself out of.
At my lowest point in 2001, I cried out to God. I asked Him to forgive me for turning my back on Him. I asked Him to accept me again. And this time around, I knew I would stumble and fall at times, but I asked Him to never let me stray from Him for as long as I have done to date: over a decade.
A decade without Him.
Then, I opened one of my mother’s Bible and my eyes fell on this verse: “You cried out to me and I heard you.” I don’t remember the chapter and verse but it was in the Psalms.
Shocked, I thought: “Maybe God did hear me.”
Afterwards, a co-worker and now friend invited me to her church. It was there I started to regain my relationship with God which I had neglected. I also got married at that church a year later. By God’s grace, I was able to re-enroll at my dream college and graduate a year and a half later. As for the acting career, I haven’t pursued it wholeheartedly because I feel God’s call in this season of my life is to write and be a keeper of the home (Titus 2:4-5). For now, I have great fulfilliment with the work He’s given me.
He’s delivered me in many, many ways.
Yes, there was a personal cost for me turning my back on Him. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t lost those years but I know if it hadn’t been for His disciplining me during that decade, I wouldn’t value Him as much as I do today. He let everything I had worked so hard for collapse so that I had nothing else to lean on but Him.
I couldn’t lean on an Ivy League degree.
I couldn’t lean on my acting credits.
I had to let go of all my ideas of success.
I could only turn to Him.
“If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the LORD your God, then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. (Deuteronomy 28:58-59, NASB)
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