Personal Journeys: My Christian Faith

This story starts with a quote. “"For a small reward, a man will hurry away on a long journey; while for eternal life, many will hardly take a single step." – Thomas A Kempis.
Being a Christian is a trialing way of life. The ecstatic points of realisation and sheer amazement at the Lord’s creation versus the low moments when you are shut down, mercilessly argued against, and seeds of doubt bloom amongst your battered thoughts.
Treading along the firebreak in the dusty bottom paddock of my farm in the dry hot summer of my hometown, I was perplexed when I trod on a green shoot emerging from the dust. I glanced up and took in a wide view of my surroundings. I usually take no notice of where I walk, what I happen across, the ground upon which my feet take their daily steps. I usually stick to my own trite and trivial thoughts, consumed in the immediate future: “What am I going to wear today?”; “What time is The Simpsons on?”; “I think I might go downstairs and play Playstation for a while”; “I wonder if Mary-Alice has broken up with her boyfriend yet...”.
But today was different- I looked around me and I saw. For real.
God’s creation was staring me in the face; pale cerulean sky flecked with wisps of white cloud, meeting on the horizon with hard brown dusty earth that held me standing there; the sunlight hot against my face which I usually tried to block out as the annoyance and discomfort factors were high. But today, I let it take over; the sun was like a message flooding my body with warmth and love. Love for the ground I was standing on, for my family, for God and His creation.  
It felt as though He was standing there beside me, showing me things one by one, directing my vision sequentially to new things I hadn't noticed in their entirety before. It was an experience I don’t believe I will ever forget.

Much later down the track as I sat on the school lawn in my new town (an extreme opposite scene to the one where I experienced my first revelation: rich...