When you need it, you need it, and you never know how much you need it until you need it that much you feel you’ll die without it.
How on earth — literally in this innately physical life — can we
begin to describe the inhabitation of God’s Presence? But that’s been an
ongoing assignment for me. To attempt it. Alas, it is always far from my grasp.
The thing I first experienced over 15 years ago is still so mysterious
to me, but back then, and ever since, it was/is never more real. I can only
imagine it was like this because I
was completely broken back then, day upon discouraged day, and yet somehow, interspersed
as fragments of experience within that season was the grace that can only
come from God.
The Lord made himself real to me. Even amid the anger, the
guilt, the injustice, the shame, the despair, and especially after the
bargaining, of loss. It was a constant journey of all these emotions and more;
and bargaining with God, though I was often unconscious about it, was a
continual refrain. Oh how tired I got from it.
But the series that is despair in loss, the long and tortuous
sequence that meanders far too long, is the hotbed for vanquishing hubris, and
it is literally a seminary for the soul.
It is so hard to explain to the person who has been knocked down
time and time and time again, that they must claw back to God and remain
hopeful. The blessed ones know no other way. They cannot survive without the
Presence of the Almighty. And what maximal faith it is to believe upon such a
thing without having ever experienced it. That person will surely be touched by
the mighty hand of the Master.
If they do not give up!
I had Galatians 6:9 as a continual soul-friend during my
calamity: “So let us not grow weary in
doing what is right [or good], for
we will reap at harvest [or the
proper] time, if we do not give up.”
I cannot tell you how often that verse and many others got me
through when I was sorely tempted to give up; when God seemed absent; when some
I wanted to care for me truly did not seem to care.
I had a smattering of experiences way back then, when life was as
dark as it could ever be, that have been legacy experiences. They remain
possessions I draw upon today. They endure. They’re eternal chattels that the
Lord gives those who give their allegiance to him when there are a million
other affections we could run to.
The thing we cannot rationalise is just how our incredibly God
reconciles our suffering for our goodness and for his glory. Afterwards.
Hebrews 12:11. Go there right now:
“No
discipline seems pleasant at the time,
but painful.
Later on, however, it produces
a harvest of righteousness and peace
for those who have been trained by it.”
but painful.
Later on, however, it produces
a harvest of righteousness and peace
for those who have been trained by it.”
God is surely using the depths of
grief as a love of discipline. Because our Lord is insensitive? No! It’s
because we’re so beloved. God is taking us into a revenant
state for the rest of our lives. Nothing afterwards will ever be the same, and
all suffering will then henceforth have intrinsic meaning.
If grief cannot beat us, nothing
can. And that’s the hope of Romans chapter 8!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.