“He
will quiet you with His love...” (Zephaniah 3:17)
“Be
still and know that I am God.” (Psalms 47:10.)
I'll
admit that for a really long time now I have been fretting over what
a horrible job I feel like I'm doing at being a Christian. I've been
experiencing what I call “growing pains” in my spiritual journey.
I have felt like I am at a place in my spiritual journey where God
has chosen to challenge what I say I believe in, to see if it holds
up under fire. At times it seems like He has been remaining silent to
test my faith, to see if, no matter what, I will really choose to
trust Him – even when I cannot feel Him. And I feel like I am
being crushed under the weight of it all. There are moments I say,
“Yes, Lord, I trust you even in the darkness.” But there are more
moments where I cry out in this darkness, sometimes in pain and
sometimes in anger – “God, where are you? God, I can't do this.
God, my faith is not strong enough.”
Sometimes
I think, how can I continue on this path of fighting sin and keeping
in step with the Spirit for another 50+ years?
The
old attacks on my sufficiency are louder than ever, and this time
they come from my own mouth and not from the Enemy.
You
are not strong enough to resist sin. You are not holy enough to be in
the presence of God. Your faith is not strong enough to endure a real
life of struggles, pain, and disappointment. You do not have enough
joy to display God's value. You do not have enough compassion, you do
not show enough grace, you do not give enough love.
Enough,
enough, enough! Satan need not
bother himself with trying to break me down because I am working on
doing that all by myself.
When
did being a Christian mean that you had to do enough or have enough
to be enough?
“When
I chose you, I did not have this in mind for you. I did not plan for
you to be overcome by guilt and weighed down by sin and crushed by
life.”
Then
what did you plan for me, Lord?
“For I know the plans I have
for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to
harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call on me and come and pray
to me, and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me when you seek
me with all your heart.” {Jeremiah 29:11-13}
I
ache with the pain that sin brings into my life. Paul tells me in the
book of Romans that I am no longer a slave to sin, but I still have
phantom feelings of the weight of sin's shackles. My sinful self has
been crucified with Christ and I am now a new creation, but death
still breathes down my neck. Day after day, moment after moment, I
come face to face with choices of obeying Christ or following my
sinful desires. More often than not I choose to follow my sinful
desires. How can I call myself a Christian or a disciple of Christ
when sometimes I barely look like Him and choose not to follow Him?
Wretched woman that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death?
Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Though
I am weak, He is my strength. Though I am unrighteous, He is my
righteousness. Though I fall into despair, He is my hope. Though I am
powerless, He is all-powerful. Though there is nothing I can do in my
sin, He has done everything through His grace.
I
want to encourage those of you who are in the same battle that I am
against sin. Though we feel like we are losing the battle, Christ has
already won it. Be still and know that He is God. The God who loves
you, who has redeemed you, who is perfecting you, and who is
sanctifying you. You cannot do anything in your own strength or
power. It is not by might, nor by power...but by the Spirit of God
that you are being sanctified and being made into the image of His
Son. You need only to be silent, the Lord will fight for you.
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