Have
you ever heard a testimony that didn't quite feel like a testimony? One
that started like "Back in the day, I did my thang!" As a child,
these testimonies would always confuse me. They were often said in youth
services by adults who seemed to both loathe and cherish their days before
surrendering to Christ. I remember one story being so excitedly told it
was as if the person wanted to go back and relive those days. Just
like the others, I knew the story would soon shift. Christ would suddenly,
or slowly, change their hearts and save their soul, but that part paled in
the light of the "YOLO" life they described initially.
I
have to admit, there was a part of me that wanted to experience that life; that
"before Christ/after Christ" life. Of course the adults would
advise otherwise, but if they made it back to God, I could too, right? I
often told my parents "I want a testimony!" (read: "I want to
live crazy and survive so I can tell an exciting story about it!")
My parents would then remind me of the myriad car accidents I'd survived and
how the greatest testimony is to simply be saved, but in my mind that wasn't enough. I wanted a testimony like the ones I'd heard. One with
spontaneity, risks, and ignorant bliss. I was the product of testimonies
gone wrong.
If You Gone Tell it, Tell it Right (not necessarily all)
The
purpose of testimonies are pretty clear. They're how many of us realized
we were not exempt from God's love. They not only confirm the power of
God to save sinners, but connects us all as children of God. No matter
your upbringing or pedigree, once lost and now found, is either your past or
your potential future. Testimonies essentially pat listeners on the back
and say "If God did it for me, He can do it for you." So what's
the problem? The problem is delivery. There is a way to deliver a
testimony that glorifies God, making Him the main attraction, and then there's
a way to deliver a testimony that glorifies everything but God. This is
important to get right because it could either lead someone to Christ or right
back from where they came.
The
way to avoid the latter is to tell the WHOLE story. Not necessarily the
gory details, but the whole story regarding your internal transformation.
Telling the fullness of what you experienced internally requires you to
convey the brokenness of your before just as passionately as the healing of
your after. It is being transparent about how the spontaneity, the risk,
and ignorant bliss affected you and still affects you. It's not to focus solely on the look of sin but the sociological and spiritual penalty of
sin. When this is accomplished, the listener is able to relate, not only to a
specific situation, but to your despair; not just to that particular sin, but to
the burden of sin. Testimonies have been most affective in
my life when they were told fully. This is how I pray my testimonies are received in this blog. I may never get to testify about anything shocking like selling
drugs or going to jail, but what I can say is I was born as a sinner and sin confused my mind. Due to disobedience my heart was once broken, which led
to more disobedience and alienation from the presence of God. I am
still not where I want to be but because of God's grace I'm right where I'm
supposed to be; benefiting from having a relationship with God and
renewing my commitment to Him daily. This is my testimony. (If you want
more of my testimony check out my previous blogs.)
#walkthetalk
Sarah
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