Doubting My Faith? Testimony

The past week has been crazy for me. Supernatural, really. I finally had “my moment” with God. I finally received that moment that Christians and preachers talk about. You know when they say “when you experience the Holy Spirit” or “when you have that moment?" I could’ve read the Bible all day when I first wanted to walk this Christian lifestyle, but I never understood it like I do now. This season has been my season of doubt and testing of my faith. I didn’t know what to believe or who to believe. I was watching videos and seeing things on social media. It made me ask questions like: “how can God be real when everybody has their own view of him. Why isn’t everybody’s the same? All these religions. Pastors preaching different things. Other countries praising other Gods.” All of these thoughts going through my head. I thought how can there be a God when all of this confusion and mess is going on in the world? I finally got to a place where I was like “Okay. Enough. I want to hear from God myself. I want to experience the Holy Spirit that people preach about. I want God to show me who he is. I want to feel Him.” That’s literally what I was thinking and praying. I noticed myself becoming more and more like the world again. Wanting to be in it like everybody else, because it gets lonely in this walk when no one around you is in it too. It's easier to just be a lukewarm believer, so that I blend in. I was very stuck on money and materialistic things. I was becoming unhappy and selfish. It just didn’t feel good. I told myself there has got to be better. I believed in heaven and hell but I didn’t know what I had to do to get to heaven. I felt like it was all a trick. Maybe there is no God. Maybe when we die we just die. Right? 

About 3 days prior to me experiencing God I was reading Revelations like I keep mentioning, and I was watching videos on YouTube about people saying God showed them a dream of the Rapture and all this other crazy stuff. It scared me to death! When I saw the videos and went back to the Bible to see if it matched, aye, it was pretty spot on with how it'll go down. So now I’m scared and low-key mad at God like what? Why would God do that to us? I was scared for like 2 days. I knew I wasn’t living completely right to make it. It’s all I could think about. It scared me into reading scriptures in the Bible for about 3 days straight. I was looking for answers. I was also desperately wanting to know if he was real because I just wanted something to believe in that I knew I couldn’t deny and nothing could shake my faith. I was tired of trying so hard to “do what’s right in the Bible or be a good person” without knowing WHY I’m doing it or WHO I’m doing it for, you know? I’m sure some can relate. And GOD!! See, this is why Bible says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). 

If you’re reading this and you’re already feeling uncomfortable stop here because I’m about to sound really really crazy. Especially if you don't believe in the spiritual world. The old Sunny would’ve been like “I’m not trying to hear this right now. This girl bout to say some crazy stuff.” 

Thursday (Feb. 21st) I felt something come over me. I believe the night before I had just prayed to God to speak to me. But, anyway, I felt something come over me and in me. I was feeling these emotions but it wasn’t like human emotions. It was deep. They were strong. I felt sad. Like not human sad but an unreal feeling of sorrow because of the times we are living in. I was sad because I know there’s people hurting out there and don’t know how to get out of it. I felt anger because of the devil and how evil he is and how he’s scheming to destroy God’s precious kids one by one. In the midst of feeling all of this, my boyfriend asked me to ride with him to the store. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out what is happening to me. And I just looked at him, and I wanted to cry because of how deeply I loved him. But it wasn’t in an infatuation, sexual kind of way. It was just pure love. I just wanted him to know I loved him in the most gentle way. We were walking in the store and I saw everyone we walked past and I wanted to hug them. I felt what they were feeling. I saw this one man and he didn’t look happy at all. I felt so deeply sad. I just wanted him to look up at me so I could give him a warm smile. The cashier that checked us out I was extremely friendly. She was talking to me and I was talking back (which I never do, I usually get anxiety just being out in public. I just get in and get out) because I wanted her to know I cared about what she was saying. I genuinely cared about everything she was saying to me. I felt just a strong sense of love for everybody. Everybody was so precious to me. Not in a physical way but their hearts. Who they are was precious to me. It was the craziest feeling y’all. Like a supernatural feeling of love. I saw this couple in the parking lot and they got out the car and the dude had a red mark on his face. Like they had just gotten in a fight or something and was pretending to act like everything was all cool. (I'm not sure how I came up with that just by looking at them) but I could just tell something wasn’t right. And I just felt angry about wickedness in the world and I wanted to just fix everything. I wanted everything to be okay. And then I got home and I just wanted everybody to know how good God is, but also how angry he gets when we follow the way of the world. Feeling all of this at the same time. It was overwhelming. I was scared of how I was feeling. I came back in my room alone because I was getting a little freaked out about how I was feeling. Even the things I was watching on TV just didn’t sit right with my spirit and usually I don’t interpret things that deep. What I was seeing I was like “oh nah this the devil”. I wanted it to go away because everything I was feeling, I was feeling but times 1000. I felt deep sorrow for the world. It’s as if I was seeing everything from the spiritual realm. On the other hand, I also felt so happy and genuine love for everybody, and I wanted them to see God for who he is. It was an out-of-body feeling. Like I was me but it wasn’t me. I low-key prayed that it went away because I didn’t know what was going or or why I was feeling like this. I couldn’t handle it anymore. It was almost making me heavy and unreal. And then I felt it go away and I felt like myself again and I knew it wasn’t there anymore because my emotions were back to how I view things. And once it left I realized after a moment that, wow, that was the Holy Spirit. That was God y’all. He was showing me what he feels and what he sees. He wanted to me see what he feels about us. He wanted me to see his perspective of  us. God literally sees us as his precious kids. His love for us is supernatural. It’s greater than what we could ever imagine. He hurts when you hurt. He hates sin because of what it does to us. He doesn’t hate you, he hates the sin. He cares about everything you’re going through. He wants you to look up to him when you’re feeling down. He wants to give you the desires of your heart. 

After that, everything started to make sense. God made sense. The Bible made sense. I was reading it and all of it made sense. It all came together. Bump religion, bump what you hear about what others say about God. What does HE tell you about him? Everything in this world will just confuse the mess out of you. He will reveal himself to you if you humble yourself before him and just ask. The main thing I got out of that experience was love. Pure love. God is love. He loves us, period. That’s why he wants us to do right by Him because he is the way and the truth. I just wanted to tell the world about Him after this. But there is nothing I can say or do to make you believe. Even if this sounds good to you, experience Him for yourself. Just know when you get to a desperate place like me, and you’re finally reaching out to God for him and not because of anything that you’re wanting from him, that’s when he will show himself. Now I understand why preachers say he reveals himself to everybody in a different way and in their own time. You can never depend on other people, preachers, movies, or books to figure God out. Each persons experience is unique to them. It’s stories like these that compelled me to God when I first wanted to truly know Him years ago. I always enjoyed hearing how people came to God and experienced him. I was always looking for him but could never find him in that kind of way. And now I have. And now I can spread my story to hopefully inspire you to seek Him. Because trust me I get it. It’s hard to know what to believe in. It’s hard to follow someone you can’t hear or physically see. It’s easy to doubt even when he does answer a prayer or two. Cause it could just be a coincidence, right? There’s been plenty of answered prayers and signs of God in my life when I think about it. Sometimes that’s not enough when you’re going through a season of doubt. Some of us don’t do well with just hearing that he’s real. I grew up believing in Him because we “had” to believe and that’s just what it was. But there will come a point where we want to know why and who? We need him to “prove it”, right? and that’s what God did for me. He allowed me to experience his Holy Spirit. God is a spirit. That’s why he says “it is by faith that you are saved”. Faith is believing in what you cannot see. You’re not going to see him. God is not human. God is supernatural. He not a white man. He’s not a black man. He is a spirit. You have to believe in your heart that he is your savior. And in due time, he will reveal it to you. You may ask “how will I know it’s him?” I asked that same question 4 days ago. But when it happens, you’ll know. God whispers because he knows you have to be close to hear Him. What do you do when people are trying to whisper something to you? You lean in. You get closer. Get connected y'all. It’s not about religion. It’s not about things you do and don’t do. It’s about believing in Him. He is not a religion. The Bible says “you cannot be saved by your works but it is through your faith that you can enter the kingdom of heaven” Ephesians 2:8-9. I see why he created it that way now. Because us being humans, we could go to him and say “but god I did this good thing, and this, and this on earth.” And he will say “depart from me, I never knew you”. What you do cannot save you. It is faith. Do you believe? Doing good things comes from the love that you have for God, it’s automatic because you want everything you do to reflect Him. So when some asks you why are you always happy? Why are you glowing? Why are you so nice to people? Why are you so loving? You can say because of God. Don’t get confused on doing good things so that you can be saved. It’s BECAUSE you’re saved, that you’re doing good things. Anybody can do good things and not really believe in Him. That would mean you’re only portraying to do good things because you want to “earn” your way into heaven. Like you’re doing it “just in case”. Which I get, because I was like that for a hot minute. But, you can’t get saved by giving to charity or a homeless man on the street. He looks at our heart and our motives. 

That’s pretty much it. Thank God I passed the test, right? God is always testing our faith to grow it.

I know this may not all make sense to you, but it makes so much sense to me now. I pray, pray, pray y’all can have your experience with God. I see the world differently. I see it from His lens. I want to do better. I want to be better for Him. I want to spread His words. I want to bring people closer to Him. That’s what he wants us all to do. This life is not about us. This is a privilege. That’s why he gave us free will. We can do whatever we want. We can choose God + live our best life while we’re here AND get what’s promised to us when we go or we can choose the world and live what you think is your best life: living with all the money, fame, clothes, girls/boys, attention, recognition, sex..... and deep down there will always be something missing. Sadness, depression, anxiety, anger, addiction, you’ll always want more, you’ll never be happy with what you have. What profit do you get out of gaining the world but losing your soul? Matthew 16:26.  Read that again. Let me put it into millennial words. Whatchu gone get out of gaining everything you want in this world, but lose your soul? Lose your morals. Lose your values. Lose sight of the one who made you. Lose purpose in the one who gave you a purpose. The more greedy and the more you take, the less you receive spiritually. You can live your best life and love God at the same time. I will say that til the day I die, because that’s facts. I love you all!!