Getting to the GIST of Things

“The Lord doesn’t want you to come to Him as a brainiac who knows her Greek and Jewish language-her Hebrew. He wants us to come to Him as His children. He wants to shower us with His love. So don’t spend time flogging yourself. That’s not what the Lord is asking.” I needed to be reminded of this by Mom today.

It’s so easy to forget that the Lord has us here namely to be loved by Him and to allow us to love Him, and then others, in return. In doing so, we bring glory to God. Seminary, sometimes pronounced by Freudian slip, “cemetery,” has an ironic way of drawing me dangerously close to forgetting this simply profound truth.

I can be WAY too hard on myself, which then in turn leads me to feel apathetic and numb as a way to cope.  It’s not that I don’t  care; it’s that I care SO much that when I fail, I feel that I’ve failed the Kingdom of God and HIS righteousness. And so why continue on? I’m already a royal screw-up. That’s the “logic” I battle with.

But who am I to uphold and maintain HIS righteousness?

I have a need—a deep desire to please my heavenly Father, to love Him through obedience. I can’t let that go. And I know that my choices have real, serious consequences. But I need to remember that it is He who is the justifier, the one who reckons His righteousness to me by faith through Jesus Christ, alone (Rom 3:26; 4-5).  

I also need, as Mom, Dad, Danny, Tiina, Jenny, Chelsea and many others have reminded me, to have a social life! I don’t have one. I’m even more open to Satan’s shame-bombardment in isolation because of it!!! Lord, give me a packaged social life for Christmas this year! Throw all the good people together in a bundle and put a purple bow on it with gold trimming. Oh and I need a JOB that doesn’t relate so heavily to theology in order to stay mentally balanced. Ohhhh how I long like never before to suction the water and spit from dental patients’ mouths!  Or to serve over-priced coffee at Starbucks! I said that I would never take a job at Starbucks, because I can do much better than that. I recant! Starbucks could just be my ticket to staying sane.

I have failed the Lord, and I will again and again, not because I want to, but because I’m still battling a sin nature, which I hate. My only hope is to feed from the Love of God which is infinitely larger and more powerful than my sin, than my grievous failures. My only hope is to drink from His never-ending faithfulness and lovingkindness, and to love Him in response, with everything that I am. What I have to offer is trivial. But I offer it to a God who can make anything He wills from it. I offer it to a God who raises me—yes present active tense—from death to life. From depression to passion.  He alone sees to it that I’m raised up every morning. My hope of life and shalom—the way my child-like soul knows things ought to be—rests solely in Him.

To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen. [And Amen.]