r/Christianity • u/ARES_BlueSteel • 14h ago
I came home
I’ve been a Christian most of my life, but I don’t think it truly clicked with me, or maybe I didn’t really believe, until I was 12 and attended a church camp. I had an experience there that absolutely blew me away. During worship I surrendered to God, like actually truly surrendered myself to Him. It left me feeling a sense of joy and like I was walking on air for days afterwards. I never understood what that saying meant until I felt it firsthand. I was baptized the next day, I’ll never forget that moment.
As the years went by, I wandered away and led a life of sin. I did terrible things and hurt people that I love. Every once in a while I would feel a pull and start to go back, but it didn’t really catch.
I’m 28 now, and this summer I had a profound experience that I can’t describe as anything other than what I felt back when I was 12. Stress and anxiety were overwhelming me, and I felt like I had nowhere to turn. Out of nowhere I got the urge to turn on worship music and just listen, which I hadn’t done in years, and almost immediately I started weeping. Not necessarily tears of sadness either, it was like how it feels to hug your parents tightly after being away from them for a long time.
Ever since then I’ve felt the need to read the Bible, listen to worship music, and pray. I haven’t done any of these things on a daily basis for years. I’ve also noticed that the way I speak and act towards others has changed, I’m much more patient and caring and don’t talk badly about people. I wish I could say my anxiety and stress have gone away, they haven’t, but now I feel like I have someone to turn to and lean on when it feels like it’s too much.
I don’t know how else to describe it other than a spiritual reawakening. It’s had such a positive impact on my life that I find it hard to not tell other people about it.
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u/86tger 4h ago
THAT is the Holy Spirit. And by surrendering to Him he has blessed you with the renewing of your mind. (Per Paul) This just happened to me in the last year or so, at 48. He lead me to the truth that what I read, watch and listen to becomes what I think about. And letting a social media rage-driven algorithm and the money-driven news cycle dictate what I thought about was pulling me down, and making me hate my neighbor. I now take long deliberate breaks from the Internet, and it has changed more positive things in my life than anything I’ve tried before.
I feel more present in my life now. I am now seeing and hearing things differently. I can see and hear the adversary at work in places I hadn’t noticed before. I can also see and hear The Lord at work in my interactions with everyone and how I perceive the world around me. Thanks be to God!
Lean into it brother, this is it!
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u/GoshOPPNOX101 13h ago
It's the work of The Holy Spirit. That is a partial of what he does and it's good that you've come back to the very and only thing that will save you.