My friend Graham found that sentence doodled in a Salvation Army band journal by his grandfather decades ago. I feel I have learned the meaning of it well this year.
I have often felt the walls close in and the weight of the chaos of life flooding me. I have felt that particularly this evening, staring into the abyss of the endless to do lists in the endless different areas of my life, floundering in the tension of the person I wish I were and the person I am.
I have become more and more aware of this tension in this stage of my life. A sinner called to holiness. Broken but saved by grace. Enslaved to all these things that drag me down, but freed by love. More and more I feel the pain and longing of doing the very things I hate. God sees only Christ in me but I cannot escape from it.
I have seen the absolute best and absolute worst in myself this year. Things I never thought existed. Feelings I never thought I would face. What kind of God can see and know all these things, better than I ever will, and still love me infinitely much. I don't understand it.
Kierkegaard believed that faith in God could only really come about through the struggle with and awareness of one's own vanity and sin. I feel I have come to the end of my tether in my struggles. God's arms are still open for me. His love, mercy, and forgiveness have never failed. His grace is unfathomably constant. I just can't understand it.
We live in this tension. Does anyone else feel it too? Sometimes it takes a miracle to stay the course and not pack it all in. To believe that you are free from all the crappy things you have done and felt. To choose God over everything inside that tells you you will never come to anything. To have faith that there is still good and love inside you to give. To have hope that things are going to be ok. That we will all make it through.
What kind of God would love us this much? We are so blessed.
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