Our third post in an ongoing series right here on the blog: Kelly Goddard, singer, songwriter and the female equivalent of the jack-of-all-trades, has been willing to share her testimony with us. If you would like to share your testimony or what God’s been teaching you, email kevin.wolf@delanco.org with blog testimony in the subject line.
It’s 9:00 on a Monday night, and I’m standing in my room with flowers in my hands and tears in my eyes. It had been a particularly hard month, where I had felt barraged by all kinds of spiritual warfare. The most pressing line that the enemy kept saying to me was, “This is too hard. Are you sure that you want to walk God’s path?”
And so here I was again, renewing my “wedding vows” with God. Now, before you guys check out and say, “That’s some weird girly thing.”, think about all the times in the Bible that God compares our relationship with Him to a covenant-marriage.
“In that day,” declares the LORD, ‘you will call me ‘my husband’: you will no longer call me ‘my master’…I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.’” –Hosea 2:16,19
At its core, marriage is one of the best pictures we have of what a covenant relationship with God is supposed to be like: two people totally committing to love each other and stay together, no matter how hard it gets.
The other day I was leading worship for a group of kids and at the end, I invited them to use their hands to express their hearts to God. I told them that they could raise their hands if their hearts wanted to praise God, or they could place cupped hands in front of them if they wanted to receive a blessing from God, or they could kneel and clasp their hands in prayer if they felt desperate for God to help them, etc. Afterward, the pastor came up to speak and shared that for his posture, he chose to place his hand on his wedding band. He was re-affirming his commitment to God, a commitment that was just as strong as his commitment to his wife.
For some reason, if you’re like me, when things get hard, we often don’t think of our relationship with God as a 2-part covenant. We ask questions like, “Why aren’t You answering my prayers?” and we think thoughts like, “I’m not sure that I want to live Your way anymore.” Many of us abandon a relationship with God altogether at this point, revealing that the commitment we made when we first gave our hearts to God wasn’t much of a covenant at all.
But since the beginning of Creation, God has been looking for a covenant people, a people who would give their hearts to Him for good and never take them back. “But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me,” declares the Lord. –Jeremiah 3:20. And yet, “If you will return, return to Me.” –Jeremiah 4:1.
So there I was again, standing in my room, remembering the promise I first made when I was 7 years old, and again when I was 13, and again when I was 20…and now here again, at 27. And out loud, I said my vows again: “I gave my heart to You a long time ago, Lord, and I am not going back. The enemy will not have his way. I choose you again, Jesus.”
Is your heart heavy today? Do you feel beaten up by the attacks of the enemy? Re-commit your heart to the Lord, surrendering all of you to His plans. The attacks of the enemy will begin to subside as you resist him and stand your ground spiritually, and the Lord will rejoice over you with singing and quiet you with His love.
Praying for you, brothers and sisters…let’s become that generation of faithful people that God has been looking for.
Love, Kelly
“Place Me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.” –Song of Songs 8:6
