Hard Heart - Tender Journey
My Walk in God's Light!
by Robert Fensler, #328680, Florida Prison System
My walk through the desert started with virtually little faith. The only one thing I truly believed besides Jesus to be Lord was that if I could pray and read God's word daily and do as the Bible instructions said to do, I knew I would make it. I had just enough hope to get started.
This journey wasn't at all easy and it wasn't what I expected, like some magical force was going to come rescue me and then like magic I'm cured. Well it didn't happen like that. But what did happen was I started to see my light shine a little more each day, my prayer time went up, I started desiring God's Word more, and my desire for worship service increased. I started tearing down the wall that imprisoned my mind not by my power but by God's strength in me.
Each day of this journey I thought about God's phenominal ability, love, desires for me, and His forgiveness. Now not to say satan didn't attack me because it happened in many ways from the very start. I had lust in my heart from the first day of my journey at church service and immediately I was convicted, I repented, and I was also condemned by satan but those days are long gone now.
I also had been playing negative tapes and negative behaviors played for two weeks from my journey start date. I dilligently prayed, read spiritual books, participated in spiritual sessions with Christian brothers, attended worship services, and continued meditation, prayers, and daily Bible readings from 40 Days to Freedom. God's word kept me spiritually fed.
I had to pray and meditate constantly while talking myself and praying myself out of anger, hate, bitterness for most of the forty days. I even started dreaming negative things. I was being attacked in my sleep! "God, help! This is getting out of hand. Please don't let satan take over like this," I prayed. Well being the great God that I serve, these dreams finally stopped. Now here's how I failed again. I went into the valley on the 22nd day; my selfishness and temper and impatience stole me once more, just that quick. The sad part about it was that I took it out on another Christian brother. After I came back down 48 hours later I felt very foolish, selfish, ungrateful, undeserving of being a Christian. Now satan was attacking from the front and back. First by me blowing off steam and secondly by condemning me. Finally 48 hours later I was convicted enough and I asked God for forgiveness. I did alot of praying, sulking and self pitying those two days. And yes God saw me through. I got blocked those two days and I wouldn't quit trying. I was so determined to succeed, that instead of falling away like satan wanted I went just the opposite way in a hurry. I know how slick and devious satan is and by God's grace I was caught from falling and amazingly I was brought above the mountain top to the next level because on the 25th day I started calling on God's strength and now these meditations and prayers started hitting me from all sides.
I started to comprehend the true power that I had to call upon. The scales were being lifted from my eyes. My hearing was intensified to God's Word. My wall against the worldly pleasures was being built. To those negative-pessimistic views, they were being blocked out from being heard. I started telling myself positive things. I continued Bible study on a higher level, I started understanding scripture. On the 32nd day I'm telling myself to get closer to God. I'm now praying to God, "Please let me have a closer walk, reveal the Spirit more." And in these times I keep hearing Matt 6:33, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God" and Phil 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me;" and now this is what's happening to me. I thank God for being my warrior partner, you alone have been my willpower.
Now 40 days later I have a greater walk with God. I understand the spirit which is within being inspired by the Holy Spirit. I truly believe my work for God has just begun. I'm praying and waiting for further instructions from my Maker. Thank you for allowing me to share this walk with you, Father.
Commentary by Tom Lomas:
Robert's 40 day journey in the desert of his soul is presented as a single experience in using the God-given procedure in 40 Days to Freedom. It should not be considered a model or a time-table of experiences to guage success or failure. Indeed our only model for this blessed procedure is Jesus. And since we are not imitating history but attitude, using God's strength instead of our own, we will each find our own unique set of experiences and our own time table. In fact, the human author of the procedure has made many 40 day walks and found no two to be alike. The one experience which seems to be common to most with their first walk is spiritual rebirth. Robert used the words of St. Paul in describing, "scales were being lifted from my eyes." Our book expresses being given "the eyes of Jesus." This establishes the beginning of a new life for each of us, a life of growing closer and closer to God as He reveals more and more of himself to us until ultimately we are transformed into a oneness with Him we can't begin to understand but we gratefully accept.
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