Friday, February 22, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Yes it's long, but it's the outpouring of my soul after the light broke through the clouds that have too long been hovering around it
Relentless grace. I've written on these words before, but I think it's time for me to revisit them. My life feels as if it has been a series of flights and pursuits - I try to run from God, and He chases me down. He repeatedly makes it very clear that I belong to Him, and He will tirelessly pursue me if I try to escape. He also makes it clear that this is for the best, as I need Him to be happy. He loves me and has my best interest at heart, even if it means breaking me in the short term.
I do not know what sparked my latest run for the hills, but I can tell you what it looked like. There was fear all around. Fear that I will never know God's purpose (or perhaps my purpose, I was after all trying to escape) for my life. A fear that I have screwed up enough times, so God is done with me. That I may still be called His child, but I'll never be allowed to serve Him in a fulfilling way. A fear that all those around me will find their way but I will remain lost, and thus be left behind. A fear that I am pitied among my friends, and thus have no hope for developing a normal, healthy, give and take relationship. A fear that I am, in a word, a failure.
With fear all around me, life sucked. I saw things through a cloud that distorted everything. Instead of being thankful for what I had, I saw only that which I didn't have. Instead of rejoicing with my friends when good things happened to them, I was only jealous and focused on my own inferiority. I was headed down the path of making my own fears come true because that is all I could see. I was withering up and dying inside, and still I didn't want to return to God. I don't know why. It's madness. But some lie that had become embedded in my heart clutched at the cloak of fears around me and refused to let it go.
But my God is a relentless God. He does not give up on those He has claimed as His. And somehow, despite all my fears, I bear His mark. He knows me. He loves me. I have been bought, and I am no longer my own. (That makes me think of Nathan saying that we should "buy things back" for the kingdom of God. That's certainly what God has done with me.)
There were many, many signposts that God was trying to get my attention. I went through a period where almost everything I saw pointed me to Him. But despite seeing these things (and missing many others, I'm sure) I didn't turn. I walked further and further away until I thought I had no hope. But still God found me.
My wonderful wife had many words (and acts) of encouragement to offer me as I descended into darkness, and ignoring her influence on the opening of my heart would be unjust. She valiantly stood as a light in the darkness even while I tried to hide, and her words of life prepared me to receive what God had to say. Who knew He would plant an agent so close to my heart! But the moment that I cracked, that all my stupid self wrought defenses fell, was between God and me alone. It was public - at church this morning - and my wife stood by my side and welcomed me back, but it was God who was speaking to my heart.
I cannot remember the last time I cried as much as I did this morning. I cried when I watched Justin Scott play the piano in the first song. I think I cried at the words to the next one. I audibly gasped and broke into tears when Juli Kalbaugh shared a story from her life. (And I'd already heard the story.) After passing the Peace, I went into the prayer room and just sobbed. I think I made it through the message from Nathan (maybe. It was obviously addressed to me...) and then cried when Miska Collier looked me in the eye and told me that the bread I was taking was the body of Christ, broken for me. And I think I cried a little during our last songs for good measure.
I needed to cry. I'd wanted to cry for days. I felt better afterward. But it wasn't the crying that made me feel better. It was the fact that God caught me. After church this morning, I could look my friends in the eye and tell them what had been going on without fearing pity. I could rejoice in their good news without feeling jealous. I could smile, and laugh, and play without feeling fake. I could come before God without feeling dread.
And God has not stopped speaking to me just because He has caught me. I opened my Bible this evening to the last place I'd left off reading. It was Ephesians chapter 2. In the NIV, the section is titled "Made Alive in Christ", and this is how it reads:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This passage speaks to almost all the fears I have been having, and at a time I am ready to receive it. My sin has been covered by the work of Christ, and God comes for me with abundant grace. And He has prepared "good works" for me to do - He has a purpose for me! Do I think the timing of reading this passage is coincidence? No!
So God is speaking to me. He loves me. He offers grace. (This is one offer I'm glad I can't refuse!) Will I still struggle with my fears? I am sure the answer is yes. To one degree or another, I think this fight has been alloted to me for the rest of my life. But I need not fight alone. I have hope of victory. In fact, I am assured victory in the end, because the final battle has already been won. And that makes all the difference.
