The Nation of Myself

This morning, I am reading God’s Covenant with David, a message by John Piper. In it, he writes:

Israel learned over the centuries following David and Solomon that disobedience in her king always brought the nation to ruin.

When I read that sentence, I had to stop and reflect.

When I was born, my mom, dad, and I lived with my great-grandmother. We stayed with her until I was about a year, maybe a year and a half old. Even though I was so small, I remember the love I felt from her. She loved Jesus with her whole heart, and the love she gave me was hers, mixed with the love of Jesus.

To this day, I still remember that feeling, because it became part of the foundation of who I am. Whether I have always been aware of it or not, that foundation has always been there.

There have been many times in my life when I turned away from God and tried walking my own path. On those journeys, I found hardship. Nothing about them was easy. I turned away from my faith. I dabbled in things like witchcraft. I experienced darkness that nearly broke me.

Reading what Mr. Piper wrote made me pause and apply that truth to my own life.

I have learned over the course of my life that disobedience to God always brought the nation of myself to ruin.

While I was turned away and walking my own way, I relied on alcohol and marijuana. I treated people disrespectfully. I showed no love, grace, or mercy to others because I wasn’t able to show those things to myself. I had constant money troubles. My heart became hardened.

I didn’t like who I was.
I didn’t like where I was.
I didn’t like who I was around.

And I felt stuck.

Coming back to faith has required many honest conversations — with myself and with God. I’ve had to admit my sins, ask for forgiveness, and repent of the life I once lived because it no longer served me.

And now, at this point in my renewed journey of faith, I feel whole.

I still have moments where I stumble. I have moments where memories of my past surface and remind me of who I used to be. In those moments, I ask for forgiveness again. I repent again. And each time, God meets me with clarity and peace.

What I am learning is this: when I walk in obedience to God, the nation of myself thrives. When I try to rule my own life without Him, everything within me falls into chaos.

Obedience is not about restriction. It is about alignment.
It is about returning to the foundation that was placed in me long ago — the love of Jesus, first shown to me through the arms of my great-grandmother.

And it is about choosing, every single day, which path I will walk.