An Interrupted Life, Evans Olang

Isaiah 6:5, “So I said: “ Woe is me, for I am undone! …”

Growth is a challenge Christians face on a day to day basis. Not only in the life of a Christian but even in business, in the home, in church. No one wants to run a business that is not growing and healthy. A parent would get worried if their child was not showing signs of growth physically, mentally and the like. No one wants to be associated with something that is a stagnant, yet in the realm of our Christian walk, it’s easy at times to be stagnant and lukewarm. Some are stagnant by choice and others don’t allow things and people to challenge their walk that would cause them to grow. I believe growth takes place in an environment where there is a challenge.

Isaiah had an experience that challenged his walk with the Lord and he had to reevaluate his stand. His experience with the Lord knocked him out of the normal, where he felt safe, where there was more to his life than being just a man who feared God. In the year king Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne (I believe by vision) and everything he thought he knew about God and what he would have thought as a sign of his arrival at the top was challenged by the holiness of God. This brought him back to ground zero, incomplete. I remember days I would bring my paperwork to the teacher because I thought it was complete and then the teacher would write on top of the paper, “incomplete”. How often do we stay normal, everything is normal, our Christian walk is normal. We don’t want the Lord to disrupt our lives because if He did we may hear “incomplete”. What is incomplete requires challenge, change and hard work and who wants change when everything seems ok. Why fix what is not broken? As long as you are a Christian, you are saved, you are going to heaven, you read the bible occasionally, you go to church, you are involved in some ministry, what more would the Lord require of you?

The bible says, in 2Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified”. Evaluate your Christian life and see if you are truly growing in your walk or if you are stagnant. The same verse says “Test yourselves”, in school, teachers test students to see if what they are learning is sinking in. Without the testing, how will you know whether you are growing or not. You must have a measuring bar that serves as the striving factor for your life. We are to be imitators of Christ. Now Christ was (is) Holy, we have not prayed, served like He did, and even reached people the way Christ did. Until we look at Him as our measuring, bar we will be stagnant in our growth in Christ. Isaiah’s experience showed him that he was not even close, he therefore cried, Isaiah 6:5, “Woe is me, for I am undone! …”. This is an interrupted life for a bigger purpose. In my early Christian life, the fact that I was saved and going to heaven was enough until God interrupted my life and I saw myself undone. The experience developed a thirst to be more like Jesus which served as a challenge to strive to be like Him. I wanted to pray more, reach the lost, grow more in holiness and the list goes on. God brought people my way who challenged my walk as they served as a reminder that there is more to Christ than just being saved and going to heaven. This still challenges my walk with Him as I examine myself daily to see if I am growing or stagnant. I have also challenged many to do the same as Acts 14:22 encourages the same, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

Today you may be the old Isaiah’s normal Godly life or you can examine yourself to see if you are stagnant in your walk and pray to God to give you an Isaiah’s experience that will entirely challenge and change your walk with the Lord. The race for growth and change is still on, make sure you are running the race with patience looking unto Jesus the Author and the finisher of our faith, He is the measuring standard. Blessings Ev

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