Pam Padgett ... teacher
While praying about the blindness I have had regarding my plans to spend time
with my sister’s family when they come here on vacation ( including her daughter
who is openly committing fornication), one of the things I felt led to do was to
review how I’ve been troubled by my sister over the years. She and I were very close as children,
sharing a room and doing most things together.
I’ve continued to see us as “close”, which has greatly affected my
ability to see her in truth, and its important to see truth.
My sister is
two years older than me, and a year after I was born again, she went to
college. She became involved in heavy
drinking, drugs, and fornication and told me about these things. I knew these things were wrong, and talked
with her about this trying to get her to stop, but she continued in them. When I went to college, she wanted me to be
involved in the same circles and activities she was involved in but, of course,
I couldn’t go along with them. After she
married a few years later, she wasn’t involved in as overtly evil things (that I
know of), but still said and did things that troubled me. Now she is approving her daughter’s
fornication, telling me about it, and wanting me to approve this daughter by
being around her.
Over the years she has tried to get me to
go in the ways she is going, or at least approve these ways. There have been many struggles as I have
tried to not go in those ways.
Yet, in all
of this, I continued to think of us as being “close”. Now I see we aren’t close at all. She is going in the ways of the devil, and
I’m trying to go in the ways of God.
Totally opposite ways. This
imaginary closeness has tied me to her in subtle ways, drawing me toward her and
making me want to overlook the evil, if at all possible. But God doesn’t
overlook the evil. And I believe He is
shining a light on the evil, allowing me to see truth and not be deceived.
I died to
being a servant of sin and was born again by the Spirit of God more than 40
years ago. At that time, I died to the ways my sister
goes. In truth, we have not been
close since then. The ties to her
should have been cut then. I think they are being cut now.
2
Corinthians 6: 14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath
light with darkness? 15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part
hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16 And what agreement hath the temple of
God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I
will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people.
17
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and
touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty.
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As I was writing this and about having died to being a
servant of sin when born again, I reviewed how I was first born again …
I was 14 years old and had made plans for how I
would live my life. My plan was to
finish high school and leave my parents’ home … then live as wildly as possible
and do anything and everything I wanted to do, regardless of how awful these
things were. Then, when I was 30 years
old (at which time I thought I would be too old to care about having fun), I
would start doing what was “good”. I
thought this would allow me to go to heaven when I died.
Then a boy in
my class was suddenly killed in a motorcycle accident. One day he was sitting in class with us; the
next day he was dead. This was the first
time I realized that there was no guarantee that I would live another day (even
another minute). And my eyes were opened to see clearly that I
deserved to go to hell, that there was nothing I could do about it, and that God
was my only hope. There was a large
Bible sitting on a table which we dusted weekly, but never read. When I opened it a card was there which had
the following on it (along with some other scriptures):
Matt. 11: 28 Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I told God that I didn’t know how to come to Him, and
didn’t know if He would even save someone as awful as I was, but that He was my
only hope. Nothing else mattered, not
even my plans to live as wildly as possible.
Whatever He wanted me to do, I would try to do it. My life was entirely in His hands. I just begged Him to somehow save me. And He did.
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