It amazes me every time in my life where I find myself in the same place as I did several months before. I swear I have the shortest memory of the things that I wish were on the forefront of my mind. Yet the feelings and emotions that can cause such pain seem to creep their way back into my life constantly. I find my self falling to the same despair that is caused by most of the same situations. An event in my life that looks too hard to handle, to crazy to tame, or too costly to decide on. I hate making decisions, for I fear that I'll make the wrong one. I don't tend to walk around with much confidence in my Christ, let alone my self anymore. I've pretty much given up on trusting myself, but haven't passed the flame on to my heavenly Father. I don't trust him like I know I should, or trust him like I want to. I can see know why youth pastors and pastors alike encourage you to read your bible. It truly is the greatest thing I can put in my head. That we are infected by the fall of man, and are saved by Christ. I've become so aware of my evil heart, my selfishness, and my lack of trust in the only one who is trustworthy. I have a past of self confidence that would challenge some of the great sinners of our day. I've fallen prey to the dangers of thinking I don't need anyone, believing I alone have what it takes, and that in me alone is something worth paying attention to. I've also fallen to the deception of self saving salvation, which isn't salvation at all, for how can someone who needs to be saved save themselves. I've believed the lie that it was possible, or even the way it was supposed to be. I've given in to thinking that this life was about my success, my place in history, and that outside of Christ I had the power to conquer anything this world had to offer. The worst of all, I found a sense of pride in myself that would make Muhammad Ali look like Mother Teresa. You might not have seen it, but if you only new what I thought I was capable of. None of this was by the power of the Spirit, it was all self ordained, self made, and led to self destruction. That is where I find myself at 27 a few month away from 28. I've come to the end of my own rope, I've admitted that my plan was only worthy of crumpling up and throwing in the trash. I've acknowledged that I'm in need of something greater than myself. That I needed Jesus just as much if not more than the prostitute and the tax collector. I had to be saved, for I can't save myself. That none of my deeds are worthy of being called anything but filthy rags, and that without the death of Christ I was bound for hell. It's interesting to me because, I feel like I've started over on maturing, learning, walking, crawling. It's like I'm being raised by Christ himself. God is training me in truth, the way a parent never could. I'm learning about myself, my real self. Not the one that I wanted to be, or worked towards being, but the one that I truly am. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm honest with myself and my life. For the first time I feel like I can actually be real with myself. I thought I had to live up to something, act like something I'm not. It's like God is sitting me down and pulling out a picture of me and saying this is you. This is your heart. This is the reason I came to die. This is what I want to get rid of in you. This is who you really are. This is the heart that I created you to have. Yeah, it's been infected by the world, it's been broken, and it's been overused, but this is what I see in you. This is the life I want you to live. I know you had a plan for your life, but you always choose what leads to destruction, you won't choose anything but that JT. I used to think that God was mad at me. That he wanted me to suffer, that he wanted me to feel pain. But I'm coming to realize that he might let me feel pain for the sake of my maturity, the way a father punishes a kid even though it doesn't make sense to the kid, the father understands, but the kid just sees it as pain. What looks so unloving is the most loving thing he could do.
So I feel like there is lots of breaking that needs to happen. Lots of things that need to be annihilated from my life. It's like the difference between David and King Saul. David trusted the very outcome to Christ. He didn't move a finger when it came to taking the thrown from Saul. He trusted that if God had ordained it for him to lead Israel, then he would led, but not under his own terms, but the terms of Christ. David seemed to know the wickedness of his heart and if he relied on it, it would probably lead him astray. So he did what I find so terribly hard to do. He did nothing. He waited, and waited and waited. Even though he was told he would take that position someday, he didn't force it. He didn't listen to others who told him they needed him on the thrown. Even when people called him crazy, even when he was wanted dead by the man whom he would replace. He trusted the power of the Lord like so few people do. He had opportunity after opportunity to do what the Lord had destined him to do, but it would have been under his power, his timing, and his strength. He waited for the Lord to move. He waited for God to open doors, remove walls, and be the instrument that got David where he told him he would be. What restraint on David's part, what trust, what submission, what denial of self, and even that ability was given by God. There was great purpose in what David had to go through. Nothing that God takes us through is wasted. He uses every tear, every ounce of fear, every step, to annihilate the King Saul that lives in us all. Without this sort of trial, pain and suffering, David was on his way to becoming just like the one he despised. He was on his was to King Saul the II. We all have King Saul running through our veins. We are all so full of self righteousness, and denial of needing anything superior to ourselves, we all think we know what is best, and act according to our own self destructed plan. God wants nothing but our good and knows if we follow something that is tainted with sin, it's bound to lead to worse pain than the pain he is about to take us through. David accepted his fate. He embraced the cruel circumstances. He lifted no hand nor offered resistance. Nor did he grandstand his piety. Silently, privately, he bore the crucible of humiliation. Because of this he was deeply wounded. His whole inner being was mutilated. His personality was altered. When the gore was over, David was barely recognizable.
Most people will do anything to help you create your own kingdom. But God doesn't want the Saul in us to survive. He'll go to such extreme measures that he will accept the fact that you might raise your fist to him, doubt him, and deny he knows what he is doing. It really doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense to us. David didn't know this as his pre King days. For all he knew this could be his position forever. His suffering brought a sense of humility that successes never breed. "By earthly measures he was a shattered man; by heaven's measure, a broken one"
Too many times we take on a view of exterior rather than interior. We pray for the power of the holy spirit to conquer our enemies, but rarely pray for power to conquer the enemy within. The enemy that causes more destruction than any exterior power can. For the exterior power may kill you, but the interior power can keep you from seeing the saving grace of Christ and ultimately cause true death, an eternal life separated from Christ. Many pray for the power of God. More and more every year. Those prayers sound powerful, sincere, godly, and without ulterior motive. Hidden under such prayer and fervor, however, are ambition, a craving for fame, the desire to be considered a spiritual giant. The person who prays such a prayer may not even know it, but dark motives and desires are in his heart...in your heart. Prayer for external power leaves out the most important part. It fails to get to the root of the issue. The issue is your wicked heart. Few ever let God deal with the monster inside. Yet they pray whole heartedly for their exterior circumstances to change when all God wants to do is slay the dragon. For our exterior circumstances can change, while our interior man remain the same.
I tend to do the latter than the earlier. I tend to focus a lot on my exterior circumstances and deny the fact that my wicked heart can cause way more problems in my life than any exterior circumstance ever could. My wicked heart is what keeps me from trusting Jesus, keeps me from joy, and ultimately can lead me to a very unhappy life. I trust that God is all about my joy, all about my freedom, all about me finding life, true life. I tend to think that someday I'll come up with a plan that is good enough for God's approval. This will work right? This is what you want right? Oh you of so little faith. The work is done, saving work that is. The work that made it possible for me to be changed. For me to be saved. For me to see life through a different set of lenses. That work has been done. But the work that must be done in me is still so fresh, my wounds feel open and sore, my heart feels like I can't take anymore moments like these. I don't know that the pain will ever be enjoyable, but when I step back and see the work that God has done through the pain, the tears, and the wounds I speak a little differently. It's not my strength that God wants, it's not my power, it's not my plan. He wants my brokenness, my weakness, and my submission. He is preparing me for great things, I just don't know what those things are. They will look awfully different than anything I could dream up, but better, much better. Fuller, more free, more life giving, more joy finding, than any plan of my could ever create. I don't want it if God doesn't want it. I want to be obedient to his plan, and his will for my life. Help me Father to trust your will and design for my life. Help me to submit to you and repent of the many times I will fail to trust you with what you're doing. Help me to stop trying to take my own well being into my own hands, for I will never be able to foresee what you're doing. Rise or fall, whatever your plan, I want to submit to your will not mine.
"Can you stop it hurts when you push on that part of me I'm scared of.......better yet pursue my brokenness to the end of it." --CJ Bergmen
Italics from the book titled "A Tale Of Three Kings" written by Gene Edwards
