I wanted to do my thing, God let me.

I essentially fell away from God once I decided to run my life without including God in it.  Oh - I still prayed ... but only when I was near utter despair and needed help.

Because I wanted to do my thing, God let me. He always answers prayer, and most of my answers then were 'No.'  Why?  The answer is very simple:  Because I wasn't living as He called me to.  I wanted to live my life 'My way.'

Oh - I got to own my own truck alright ' in fact, four of them. I went broke with the first ones and a few years later bought another and tried again -- only to loose it three years later.

Remember, earlier I mentioned how listening or not listening to God can affect other people in your life as well?  Consider the heartbreak my parents felt, seeing me go farther and farther away from God.   Consider the pain it caused the children I fathered. 

I started drinking in high school, and my grades dropped. All I wanted to do was graduate and start my driving career.  I graduated, barely, and got started in the logging industry in my area.

At age 22 I got a young woman pregnant and married her.  We had two children.  After six years we got divorced because she had affairs with others.

I started drinking more.  I met another woman and we dated on and off for awhile and suddenly within a week decided to get married. Two weeks later she left and filed for divorce.  Because I had my own truck [barely], she thought I had money.

At this same time I was in an accident and couldn't work for two and a half months. I lost my truck then, and of course, kept on drinking. I new the answer was God, but I still wouldn't surrender to Him.

I met another woman and she came to me saying she was pregnant, so we got married. I quit drinking and we went to church once in a while. Yet there was no commitment to it. I was quick to come up with a dirty joke and lewd comments.

I was able to buy another truck and we moved to another state. After a couple of years my back gave out, forcing me to quit trucking.

I had started attending church regularly and the pastor came out and visited with me a lot. These few years I was a "fence sitter" -- you know, pretending to be a Christian on Sunday, but not the rest of the week. 

On one of the last trips I made with my truck I went into a Bible study at a truck stop. The preacher asked me, "Are you going to heaven or hell when you die?'

I hesitated and said, 'Heaven.'  He knew better. Here is how God used him to open my eyes.

He stood in front of me and said, "To my left is the path to heaven, go that way". So I stepped past him on that side.

"Ok" he said, "Now the other side is the path to hell, go that way". So I took a step on that side.

"OK - now get back in front of me."  When he had me step in front of him he said, "Now, go up the middle."  I couldn't.  He was in the way. That hit me like a ton of bricks.  You're either going one way or the other.  There is no such thing as straddling the middle of the fence, so to speak.  You are either on the path to heaven, or on the path to hell.  If you're not on the path to heaven, you are just naturally on the path to hell. 

Things came to a head one day at work.  I knew I had to forgive those that did me wrong in the past in order for God to really give me His blessing.   All these issues in my past were just grating on me.  Bitterness and anger were welling up in me.

As I was heading out to go home I stopped in the middle of the road. I fell to my knees crying and begging God to take this away and help me to truly forgive them.

He said to me, "Brion, all of this happened because you went your own way. If you would have obeyed Me the first time, none of this would have happened.

'Brion, it was your fault, not theirs.  If you would have listened to Me the first time, you wouldn't have failed with your business.  You would not have had any failed marriages.

'You didn't even listen to what I wanted you to do.  You just assumed it was pastoring a church.  That wasn't my call on your life at all.

'Now I am calling you again.  This time you will tell large and small groups what I have done for you and what can happen if they don't heed My call. You must do this to glorify Me."

What I'm telling everyone who reads this is, if you feel God calling you to do something, it can be anything from becoming a pastor of a church or bringing an elderly neighbor a meal. Do it. You will be rewarded and God will bless you eventually, if your motive is simply to please God in your obedience.

Now don't do it thinking, 'I need a blessing from God.  I'm going to go to a homeless shelter and help out.'  God knows your heart.  We must be very careful in our motives to obey God.  We don't obey God to hopefully get a blessing from Him.  We obey Him because that is proof that we are willing to allow Him to be Lord of our life.   Anyone can ask God to save them from their sins.  What God wants after that is to be Lord of your life.  Either He's Lord of your life, or you are Lord of your life. 

Satan demanded to be Lord of his own life as did one third of the fallen angels, and look where that got them?  Kicked out of heaven!

God is not going to make us do something that we are going to regret in light of eternity.  What God calls us to do for Him, He has full intentions of rewarding us for, some way or the other, in His timing and ways of course. 

How in the world could I have been so unwise as to think that excluding God from my decision making process was something He should bless?  That would be like Satan thinking that God should bless him for every evil act he ever committed.

The biggest most lethal and dangerous sin that each of us have to one degree or another is the sin of selfishness.  It is out of selfishness that pride comes, and all other sins against God and others. 

Selfishness expresses itself very simply:  I demand my right to do what I want to do, even if it kills me! 

It will, my friend.  It will.  It will kill you spiritually, and it will take you all the way to hell if you demand selfishness to have its way in your life. 

Selfishness has to depend upon it's own intellect, wisdom and self-proclaimed power.  Selfishness ' being self-willed, in other words ' has no need for God.  Why ' because selfishness demands to BE God.  Selfishness demands it's right to deny God ' deny that the Bible is Truth ' deny that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven - to have one's sins forgiven ' deny there even is a hell. 

We can read the Bible day in and day out and completely miss the most hideous sin we all have hidden deep in our heart.  We can go to church Sunday after Sunday, and leave with that hideous sin in our heart.  We can pray, we can fast, we can give money to help advance the Kingdom of God ' we can do all kinds of honorable and God-glorifying deeds of kindness and mercy ' yet fully miss the most lethal sin each of us are born with.  It's the sin of selfishness.

None of us know just how truly selfish we really are capable of being until God starts asking us to allow Him to be Lord of every area of our life.  

I have to laugh when I hear some Christian saying that they believe they can reach a state of sinlessness in this life.   Some fool preaching that doesn't have a clue, evidently, that selfishness is a sin we all have hidden deep inside us, and all God has to do to reveal it to us ' if we really care to see it, (which we usually don't) ' is allow some painful testing to come our way that seems totally 'unfair.' 

God was refining Job's heart by allowing Satan to sift him the way he was sifted.  Job may well have been the most righteous person on the face of the earth at that time ' but I can tell you this much ' Job grew to be a lot less selfish once Satan's sifting was over.  Job had a couple extended 'this is unfair tests' from God, that he passed.

All God has to do is allow the devil to sift you and I a little like He did Job, and depending on how quickly you start getting upset and angry at God for the 'unfairness of it all' ' measure your 'selfishness gauge.'  It might be about to explode into many fragments!

Letting God have the reins of our heart is the wisest thing we can do.  Letting Jesus Christ not only be our Savior, but also LORD ' is the wisest decision we could possibly make.   Don't let 30 years go by trying to figure out if I know what I'm talking about or not ' okay?

Our human reasoning ' our human intellect and supposed 'rational thinking' is a very dangerous thing, and selfishness absolutely refuses to believe it!   Only until we submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ are we given the mind of Christ to help us begin realizing that the One who created us ' the One who created all things ' the One who has power over life, heaven and hell ' surely knows what is best for us and what isn't. 

How sad and painful it must be to God to look down upon humanity and watch so many people walking the spiritual path of selfish suicide ' the path leading them straight to hell ' and not even caring, let alone having a clue. 

Well ' God has called me to help a few of them wake up from their spiritually deceived stupor before it is too late, by sharing my story.  Thanks for reading it.

I can't encourage people enough reading this to let the Holy Spirit rule in your life.  He'll never force you to do something you really don't want to do.  However, whatever He does ask you to do, it will only be good for you.  You might not get to see all the good accomplished from your obedience to Him in this life, but I can assure you of this: At the Judgment Seat of Christ, when you are rewarded for your obedience to God, you will have no regrets.