It's
been a long time since I've written anything here. I just haven't been ready to
let anyone read my thoughts - mostly because I could barely make sense of them
myself. I’m hoping this post will be the first of several related accounts of
the painful, but incredibly precious lessons of this past year. I’ve debated
long and hard about whether or not to share them, but I think that when God
reveals truths about himself to us that they are worthy of recounting. So to
God be the glory.
The
past 6 months or so have been some of the most internally tumultuous months of
my life. I've been broken and rubbed raw and laid bare in my selfishness and
sinfulness more forcefully than I ever expected. It’s a jarring thing to wake
up one day and realize that what you thought, albeit secretly, was a fairly
good and upright life still only amounts to filthy rags in need of
washing.
In
the process of all these distasteful realizations I realized that I was often
giving my life to God in the same way you would hand a glass figurine to a
toddler: "Okaaaaaaay ... you can hold it. But be very still and hold it
just like this and don't drop it or play with it or do anything that could
break it."[i]
In
other words I didn't trust Him. At all.
I
was horrified by this awakening. And Terrified, very terrified. The
implications snowballed in my mind until I doubted even my salvation. How could
I tell God that I don't trust Him and still be saved? Isn’t trust implicit in the Gospel message?
I searched for proof of my once upon a time trust. I dug through my
memories for evidence of a changed life, but I was saved at the age of five. I
have no dramatic before Christ/after Christ testimony. I rehearsed my past
sins, oh how they multiplied! No one who truly loved or trusted God would ever
be so proud or manipulative or selfish.
But then after too many numb days and fearful nights, into the darkness of my
rattled consciousness came the lyrics of a hymn I hadn’t heard in years. I only
remembered one line.
“Oh
Love that will not let me go.”
Spotify
supplied me with the remaining lyrics. I played it on repeat for
days:
“Oh
Love that will not let me go,
I
rest my weary soul in thee.
I
give Thee back this life I owe,
That
in your ocean depths its flow
May
richer fuller be.
...
Oh joy that seeks me through the pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I trace the rainbow through the rain
And trust the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be."
One
night with this melodic truth continuing to pull apart the lies[ii], I
think I understood for the first time what Paul was saying when he wrote that “the Spirit
himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Maybe he
wasn’t really speaking about the absence of all doubt, but more a promise that
the doubt wouldn’t win. That night I wrote this in my journal:
“It comes to this – I am a child of God. And He will not let me
go. No matter the severity of my doubt, or the length of my anger, or the
stubbornness of my disbelief. I cannot escape from Him. I cannot be snatched
from his hands. His love is relentless; it will not let me go. How can I but
trust this kind of love? To give him back the life I owe, and finally rest my
weary soul.”
Sometimes I think that God allows us to wander into deep dark
places to break us and bring us to a new realization of our sinfulness, and
therefore a greater understanding of His magnanimity.
But I had forgotten the ‘therefore’. I had forgotten His goodness. I
had forgotten His love, His grace. But mostly I had forgotten His faithfulness,
and that His faithfulness is not contingent upon my own.[iii]
This meant that if I ever was His then I still am, and always
will be His. I understood to my very core, perhaps for the first time, that assurance of salvation rests not in the steadfastness of the rescued, but in
that of the Rescuer.
I had given leaving my best shot – ignoring His Spirit in a big way for
much longer than I believed I could. I threw the grown-up version of a temper
tantrum; I plugged my ears with headphones, and filled my every waking moment
with people. I almost wished He would give me up, because in my deepest soul I
knew He deserves infinitely more than me. But He didn’t give me up. And He won’t, because my guilt and self-condemnation are not stronger than his grace and forgiveness. I am not God's equal.
What comfort and peace I feel just remembering this: that God’s is a jealous love, an irrationally relentless love. It is a compassionate love, that having once saved me, will never let me go.
What comfort and peace I feel just remembering this: that God’s is a jealous love, an irrationally relentless love. It is a compassionate love, that having once saved me, will never let me go.
“Soul then
know thy full Salvation
Raise ore
sin and fear and care,
Hope to find
in every station,
Something
still to do or bear.
Think what
Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what
Father’s smiles are thine,
Think that
Jesus died to win thee.
Child of
heaven canst thou repine?”
{this was
step #1 on my epic, perhaps dramatic journey where-along God taught this stone-like
heart to trust like a child. I shouldn’t have used the past tense. I suspect
this will be a life-long journey.}
[i]
I’m actually stealing this illustration from a conversation with my friend
Kristen while driving through the mountains of Washington talking about the
deep things of life. She makes excellent analogies.
[iii]
“When we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.” 2
Tim. 2:13
