What Shall I Say To These Things – Christiandialog.com

I was asked to give my testimony. What words will I choose? What shall I testify of? What shall I say to these things?

I testify of my deliverance from destruction guided by Psalm 107. I understand what not to leave out because of Psalm 103:1-5. I cannot leave out my plea as worded in Psalm 53. I cannot testify without offering my praise with the words of Psalms 103 and 23. I cannot testify without reflecting on Romans 8:1, 8:28, and 8:38-39. I cannot testify without thinking about John 14:15-18…

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

I cannot testify without my mind going to 1 John 1:1-4 and 1 John 4:13-14

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

How could I testify without thinking of the deer longing for water brooks (Psalm 42), seeking the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), about Jacob wrestling in the night with what seemed to him to be a man at first (Genesis 32:24-31) but was actually God himself (Genesis 32:28). I cannot testify without thinking of Jeremiah 18 and the warm hands of God forming me into what will be good for him and good for me. I cannot help but to rejoice in the warmth that I cannot escape as described in Psalm 19 — nor would I want to escape it. And the list goes on so much so that the Bible stories speak for me in a language and with a vocabulary that are authentically my own story.

I wrestle with God and lose, but at the same time I win. I suffer with Job and find God nearer to me and myself nearer to him. I am the disciple who finds Jesus peacefully asleep while I am anxious and uncertain. I am Paul misguided by what I am certain about only to find that Jesus meets me in an unexpected glaring light that corrects me and gifts me with a truly abundant life.

What shall I say to these things? I cannot choose any more powerful words to me with which to describe these things that define now who I am and have defined me for decades. So — with my life and my words — I do the best I can to testify of someone (Jesus) and something that is so dear to me (my love for Jesus and faith in Him) that I would be no more than an empty shell without these things.