So went back home last reading week…each time I go back from Waterloo during a term in school, I’m always a little wary of the fact that I have an obligation to be loving to my family, like Christ and to find a way to preach the gospel to them. I’ve learned to be able to trust God more and rely less on myself when it comes to spreading the gospel to them.
It’s definitely a battleground for me spiritually back home. My family being non Christian, and living with them for all my life, it’s really hard for me to talk to them and love them in the same way I love my brothers and sisters from fellowship or church. I can’t relate to them as much and find it uncomfortable to talk to them about spiritual matters. There is pride in myself when I talk to my parents as well as pride that they have (I don’t even feel comfortable saying that..should I be? I can’t say I can rebuke them either because they aren’t Christian? 
).
My heart is also definitely been hardened towards them over all these years, where I’ve been able to open up with brothers in sisters in Christ, but not to my parents because of that difference in beliefs. And so it has only gotten harder and harder to find a way to draw close to them relationally….and it’s a loop that I know that I need God’s grace to break… Only He can soften my hard heart (Ezek 11:19).
But I think when it comes down to it, it (I guess a lot of things too in our spiritual walks) can be attributed to the fact that I just don’t preach the gospel regularly to myself enough and don’t spend enough time with God. In Waterloo, I can feel more “Christian” because I’m around fellow Christians, I can have “spiritual discussions”, watch sermons, read the Bible, pray, go to CCF events, etc etc etc. But when I go back, it all falls apart. I don’t have fellow Christians to have “spiritual discussions”, I have less desire to read God’s Word, to watch sermons; it’s war. But all these things in reality don’t matter if your heart is not truly in it. If I just do these things, it might not mean anything to God. (Isaiah 1:11-17)
Am I truly seeking God all the time? The “Christian” things I do here in Waterloo might just be an illusion to me, that fools me into thinking that I’m “ok” with God. But when I go back home into the battlefield, I realize….I don’t even know how to use the Sword, or how to defend myself from arrows…
Thank you Lord, that you give us Grace to do Your will and that your Spirit convicts us of our sin. Help us to persevere and trust in You, that You are working in Us, and making us more like Christ everyday.
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