I felt it as the sun went down, sitting in the big empty chair, mourning over things that weren't and things that weren't supposed to be like this and a life that wasn't supposed to be this hard.
Despair. What an awful word.
I felt it the next day as all the ugly in me built up and I finally snapped, lashed out at one of the only people who'd seen my true heart and hadn't abandoned me. God, what hope is there for me when this monster lives in me?
Anger. It doesn't let the steam out, it burns.
I felt it that night as I helplessly dropped to my knees and begged, begged, for God to show up, to fix this, to do something. It was the kind of crying where you don't even realize there are tears because all you feel is that it hurts.
Fear. Terror. The devil loves to tell lies, and he knows where the chinks in your armor are.
Maybe God isn't there. Maybe there's no point. Maybe this is the way things are now.
When you let one lie in, they pile on. You start to project, seeing things that aren't really there.
That person doesn't love me. Maybe God doesn't anymore, either.
They betrayed me. Maybe He will, too.
They ignored me. Why would God want to listen?
The list goes on and on and it begins to swirl like a cloud- despair. It's a dark place to be, one that I would give the world just so one person wouldn't have to experience it. Nothing is more terrifying to a believer than the thought that God has abandoned them.
"No."
That was the word that changed everything. In the past, God has spoken to me in whispers, in tugs, but never like this. This felt like a sledgehammer of a word, busting and breaking through this darkness that had wrapped around me. The cloud shattered and He poured in.
"No, the devil doesn't get to tell you lies, you're mine. You don't get to live like you have no hope, you're mine. Period. Final. No matter what your heart tells you and what other people tell you, the only word that defines you is mine. I do not let my children go. I love passionately and pursue relentlessly. I paid the highest price for your life, and that old nature that keeps trying to pretend to be you is already dead. I finished sin, I finished shame, I went to the very gates of Hell and took the keys because Heaven is mine and earth is mine and it's all mine, including you. You are not your anger and your fear and your despair, you're mine and that's it."
Our God is mighty. Our God doesn't just sit around and watch us wander and struggle, He fights for us. Yes, He will let us get to the end of our ropes, but when we get there He is always there to catch us.
So no, it isn't easy, and it isn't simple, and sometimes God does things you can't really explain.
All you can do is praise.
Because a God who delights to always, always, save His people, a God who would bother to fight for me, deserves it. He deserves every inch, every millisecond of my poor little life, and it's His to do as He pleases. Yes, the cost is high but the reward is infinite.
You see, the scariest moment of this whole ordeal was that brief space of time (the calm before the storm, so to speak) where I felt like God was silent. It crossed my mind that this is what the lost feel like all the time. Alone.
Because if God isn't there, then there really is no hope. No point. We've got 80 years here if we make it and then, nothing.
But if God is real and involved and really all He says He is? It makes all the difference.
If God is there we can't keep living like we're dead-we're not. We can't keep acting like we have to fix everything ourselves- we can't. We can't keep living like this world is going to kill us-it won't. Yes, our bodies are still tethering us to this earth, but our soul is free. "He whom the Son sets free is free indeed."
John Piper explained it beautifully when he said,
"Our identity is to be creatures of God with a nature designed to image God and display His beauty and glory. We do that by finding most joy in Him." (slightly paraphrased from his sermon "Identity and Desire")The thing that stuck out to me here was that my purpose is so much more than the little one-line summaries I'm used to hearing. My purpose is not specifically just to serve God or just to love Him or just to be an evangelist. My purpose is to image Him. I am one of millions (billions if you consider the lost who unknowingly image Him in certain ways) of walking monuments, a poster, so to speak. Our job is show what God is like so people will give Him glory, and as Christians we do that by juxtaposing our great depravity with His infinite grace.
There is nothing good in me but He makes me good.
My creativity is meaningless but He is the great Creator and He painted the very night sky so we would see how beautiful He is.
Any kindness I try for is a selfish endeavor but He is the God that goes to the broken and poor and needy and abandoned and He cradles them in His arms.
My natural desire is to do whatever it takes to make me happy but He is the treasure in a field that is so great it compels me to sell it all, to give up myself, to do whatever if takes if I can only have Him.
So take heart, friends. God does not let go of us. We may feel like everything is breaking, but He is still in control, holding everything together. We have chosen the good portion, remember? Though all should fail, nothing is worth comparing to Him. He only wants us to desire and take joy in nothing more than Himself.
"If Christ be anything He must be everything."-Charles Spurgeon
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