All the time.
Today, realization came...
...I'm free. Like, really. Not just, "Yeah, the Lord delivered me from all that, but I may end up right back in it." Not just that.
But free. No one can snatch me out of His hand. Nothing can. I'm His.
Which means I no longer feel as though there's a "second shoe getting ready to drop," holding my breath in anxiety over when the next complete maelstrom will unfold.
No. In seeking Him, in continuing to seek Him, He will and has kept me.
And I'm not saying this in the sense that...there's something different now which means I can slack.
Not at all.
Be careful when you think you stand, lest you should fall...as it truly goes.
Just...to stay always broken before Him, evermore broken before Him increasingly...to stay there, and to remain in the Word...and to remain prayerful, always....and to always rejoice, in all things...and to seek the counsel of other believers, through fellowship which edifies and exhorts one another in the Lord...and to continue under sound teaching and pastorage...
He will keep me. Not I, but He.
I won't be the one who makes the determination. So long as humility remains a prayer and a pursuit, which it will--by the grace of the Lord, so as to evermore come into a sanctifying, perfecting knowledge of Him, thereby being conformed more completely to His will and transformed more wholly into His image... So long as there's there, as there has been... ...so long as it's been as it has, He will answer that prayer. Because it's been prayed.
In His name.
Believing.
So, He will answer. He will keep me.
I don't have to remain anxious and fearful about falling, because He'll keep me--not I, myself.
He said so.
In so many ways.
I'm just praying as well that He continues to keep me in prayer for these things of necessity, as to ever draw closer to Him. Always keeps me in such prayer, always praying, and for others.
Another thing which crossed my mind for a while, again, was in regard to wishing there were something which were a physical signifier that I am His. If only I could emblazon His name above my heart, for all to see, to proclaim. "Property of the Lord Jesus Christ." But, no...no, not a tattoo. Certainly not there, nor even, although I so desire to be so signified externally...on my lower arm or hand--for all to see.
Just to proclaim my subjugation, my complete subjection, wholehearted allegiance...that it might proclaim what words oft lack, explicit.
And, knowing the pain of such a needle, the thought came that it would be welcomed...just to be so marked, so signified as wholly devoted and singly owned.
Which brought to mind the process of becoming a bond-slave. Having initially read of the process, how painful it must have been--my mind was utterly appalled at the thought of someone willing choosing not only to be a slave to someone otherwise willing to allow them total freedom, but also the sheer pain involved in the process of being so demarcated.
‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life” (Exodus 21:5-6).
...so, it's like: One, you're choosing to be someone's slave. No rights or freedom except those allotted by your master. You're making a free-will decision to surrender your free-will in favor of doing anything your master would have you do, no matter the day, time, nor season. Your comfort is no longer your own concern, given as you're surrendering your prerogative to tend to it--you're choosing to become completely subject to and dependent upon someone else. Technically, you can't even tend to the life necessities such as food, eating, sleep, or even living unless they so will it. But you're making the choice to subjugate yourself entirely to their will, as an act presumably irrevocable. As with the vows of marriage, only...for real, rather that the nonsense which constitutes marriage, these days.
Secondarily, you're willingly subjecting yourself to an act which will be indubitably painful (admittedly brief, for this particular, yet sharp and throbbing pain), as an external signifier of your decision, lasting.
...I had just never really been able to comprehend how someone could make that decision. Even considering a "good" master. How could you, still, just say, "Please, I want not to leave upon my own will, but would prefer to always serve your will from this point for the remainder of my life."
Just...made no sense to me. Especially given the seemingly random pain inflicted.
But...
Now. Serving the Lord. Walking with Him. Knowing Him, and experiencing the joy of His presence and His guidance and solace and correction... ...experiencing even such minute amounts as there have been, so wholly fulfilling and utterly encompassing... ...such love...
...I would far prefer His will, to my own. I want always His will. And I pray that He conforms me, evermore.
Just...His will is always for good. That which glorifies Him utterly saves, sanctifies, succors, and serves others--such grace, such love, such mercy..
Whereas my will tends toward self-indulgence and indulgence only of those "known and loved," rather than for all. And that self-indulgence tends toward problems.
Even truly trying not to be self-indulgent...going about things according to my plans, my focus was still limited by what I knew, what I could anticipate, and what I thought best even given such limited comprehension.
His will, however, isn't limited by any such constraints. He has no limitations, so all which is good is worked in ways which exceed my ability to comprehend. Trusting His goodness, though, for having tasted of it so many, many times myself...for having witnessed His faithfulness in the lives and testimonies of others...I know that His will is good.
Whereas...again...mine is inherently flawed, just given my limited scope--no matter how vast it ever yielded to, still it was never anywhere even in the same realm as His. So, so flawed..
So, I want to do His will. In regard to all things--myself, my provisions, my sustenance, my well-being, and in everything regarding increasing desire to see the lives of others so similarly satisfied in His infinite love and goodness. Even as just to share His love in whatsoever capacity He will allow--always to be trusted, then, as He is holy, pure, and without reproach.
And feeling as such, so strongly...I have declared myself His bond-slave.
There was no life outside of Him, and as such there's no turning back. There's nothing to return to.
His, His alone.
Thus, the desire to be marked, significantly, as His. Ever were it to entail pain, then gladly suffered in rejoicing, just to be so well and thoroughly known His...declared before all.
Such the better, that the Lord would allow someone so wretched as I've been...so much greater the gratitude in having been delivered from utter debasement unto a position of servitude which glorifies the only true God. Even just to be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord...or whatsoever He would will of me. Knowing and trusting that He does and will equip me for the service, no matter what--even if it's never other than what presently exists--then, still, is there such reward!!! Oh, just to know Him! There is nothing else.
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