I shared a few weeks ago about how
lately I feel like I am struggling in my relationship with God….how my sin,
while showing me my need for a savior, literally makes me sick to my stomach! I feel unworthy and completely incapable and
unacceptable to God….and yet I know He is my Savior, the lover of my soul, and
the only thing I can cling to in this world (You can read more about that here).
But what I didn’t share a few weeks ago, was
that a few months ago I began asking God to show me the depths of my sin. While I’ve always known I was a “sinner”, my
sin didn’t really seem to bother me…as long as I didn’t get caught in it by
someone else….and I really felt like I needed to understand how much of a “sinner”
I really am in order to understand the full depth of God’s love, grace and
forgiveness.
The thing is….I don’t really think I
thought about the ramifications of that prayer before I started praying
it. It’s one of those “dangerous”
prayers….right up there with “God break my heart with the things that break
yours” and “Give me patience Lord”….that are awesome in terms of your
relationship with God, but often involve a refining fire and being broken and
pruning….and well those things just aren’t pleasant!
I have been living in the “unpleasant-ness”
of that prayer for weeks now it seems….week upon week of feeling completely
distraught and overwhelmed with my own self-centeredness and the reality that I
will do pretty much anything to bring honor to myself instead of God….and
yet I’m sure I haven’t even seen more than just the tip of the iceberg when it comes
to depth of my sin!
I wish that I could say I see the
end in sight….like there was a light house in the distance or a beacon of hope
telling me that the lesson is almost over….
But I don’t. In fact, I kind of
feel lost at sea….like I’m in the middle of the ocean with water and waves all
around, but no land in sight!
I have so many questions and feel
this sense of disconnect between what I know in my head to be true about God
and what my heart is feeling! I want to
understand why God would love me so much to forgive me time and time and time
again….why He would choose not to give up on me….and why he would even call me
into His service, when all I bring to Him in return is a heart that desires to
honor Him, but often carries that out in ways that just don’t…..but I can’t seem
to find those answers….and that’s frustrating!
Maybe the problem is that I’m
looking for reasoning in something that can only be understood through faith and
I have to learn to just accept truth because it’s truth and not because I
understand it from beginning to end. Or
maybe this is God’s way of bringing me into a deeper relationship with Him,
where I understand that I am nothing and I have nothing outside of Him. Or maybe….this is just the answer to my
prayers.
All I know for sure is that I must
keep treading this water…and so I do…praying along with Paul in Ephesians 1
that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give (me) the
Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that (I) may know Him better…and that the
eyes of (my) heart may be enlightened in order that (I) may know the hope to
which He has called (me), the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,
and His incomparably great power for us who believe”! Amen!
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