Before giving God my “Yes”, I thought I was “Living My Best Life.” This phrase became very popular in 2019, if not before. Living My Best Life was used by everyone who was vacationing, getting out doing things they have never done before, traveling abroad, whatever made a person feel they were living their best life. In my opinion, it became a term of liberation, I know it was for me. After all the pain and the hurt I had experienced in recent years, it was time for me not to be consumed with my past and start Living My Best Life, so I thought.
Some months had passed since I went through my first purging process in 2018, and I was on a spiritual high for some time after that. But as my spiritual high started to fade away, so did my desire to please God. I started slipping back into old wants, desires, and fulfillment. The spiritual high I had experienced, needed to be more than just a good feeling. I actually needed to work to maintain it. At the time, I did not understand the importance of what I had to do to continue to walk in God’s will and not my own.
But here I was walking in my own self-will. It started with sex, but it was not fulfilling. As I began to analyze why I had a talk with my Pastor and Spiritual Father in November of 2018. I told him what I did, and how it wasn’t pleasing. He spoke these words to me, “I’m not sure why it wasn’t pleasing to you, but you are not the same person you were before, you have changed. Your spirit is different. You have to align your desires with God’s desires for your life.” He prayed for me and I felt a spiritual shift in my body, and I received the Word he had spoken over me.
That word my Pastor spoke carried me for a while and that spiritual high started to come back until self-will began to creep back into my spirit. It came in the form of “Living My Best Life” when I was taking a trip to Jamaica in 2019. I deserved this trip. All the hell I had been through over the last three years, it was time for me to take a real vacation and do something I “wanted”. From the time I knew I was going, I spoke the very things I wanted to do for five months that would bring me fulfillment while I was there.
If I can be transparent, I went there with the intention of smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and having sex. All things that I wanted for myself and they all happened. I wanted to make myself feel good. You say “can’t you do that at home in the US?” And I’ll answer yes every time, but the opportunity didn’t present itself and those things you hear about Jamaica were what I wanted to experience. I never once thought to say, “Will this be pleasing to God, My Father?” I never once said, “You know you’re going there with the intent to sin, right?”
When I told those who are closest to me what I wanted to do before I went and even that I actually did it after I went, the first response from everyone was, “Ok girl, live your best life, I ain’t mad at cha” actually encouraging me. That fed my ego of self-will even more than God’s will. And what did I do in response to them saying “you’re living your best life.” “I sure did, girl. I revealed it, enjoying the way it made me feel. Pastor says all the time, “If you are sinning and you’re not having fun, then you’re not doing it right.” Well, I did it right and enjoyed every minute of it.
All this did was put me in a deep hole and I would literally have to fight and dig my way out. As I reflect on the events of Jamaica and living my best life, what did living my best life actually cost me? It cost me so much and I’ll explain later. I had a different glow about me, a smile that was big and wide and beautiful when I came back from Jamaica, but it all came from the sins I did living what I thought was my best life.
Leave A Comment