Have been remembering.
The people, the places, years ago. Broken-hearted, even then, longing for some way to bring peace, hope, and heal through love. Apart from directing to Christ, though, each bit given was just a bit of faltering solace in a sea of pain.
Each time returning to a point of any perceived strength, striving and giving again to a point of collapse--again and again, unto so much self-destruction. Even when errantly succumbing to the need for companionship--in desperation, clinging to whatever scraps of compassion could be found.
I remember, numerous people tried to keep me from going back to New Orleans after Katrina. Even with an offer from one for a job working support with legislature at Charleston, WV--accommodation somehow provided, as well, just to keep me from going back. Everyone knew it would be unto death. I did, too.
I had to go back, though. There was no alternative. None which would have allowed anything akin to piece.
My actions weren't holy, by any attempt. My thoughts and tendencies weren't given to obedience to God or reverence for Him, despite erstwhile and continued calling myself seeking to know Him according to my own understanding.
But, still, somehow...in some way I'll probably never understand, the Lord was still making some way. The first private conversation ever had with a new friend, there, at first meeting and being alone with her, was concentric about making the case for Jesus. For His divinity. His resurrection.
Apart from providing some partial witness that was given to me, when He brought me to surrender--at the last conversation via phone, a year ago...she'd still been completely unwilling to even acknowledge Jesus is truth. She'd convinced herself for many long years that He was a fable which mimicked the traditions of so many other religions.
That conversation didn't continue until just after Easter of this year. She contacted me online to ask where His body is--she'd been going through resources, searching the available information on the internet...trying to find out where His body rests.
I told her.
And as part of her questioning, searching, she apparently also went to another of our mutual friends, one known to "know things." He directed her to me. I believe he knows. He's running, too, though.
It's in the Lord's hands. She was so kind to me, always. I miss her. There were so many people who tolerated my presence and even welcomed me, so often, if most did so without concern or compassion.
I'm nothing, less than a grain of sand, and yet He does use us.
Despite us, often.
I don't understand these things. Especially given the utmost wretchedness of so many things endeavored and undertaken. He could have delivered me from sin, so many years ago. He could have broken me under the weight of it all, back then. I was in defiance. I was trying to do things and help people my way...even striving to know God according to my own pursuit, rather than according to His revelation of Himself.
He gave once, just under two years ago, that it was according to His design. Permitted, so to enter preparation. He wasn't complicit in my sin. He was grieved. Sorely grieved. But He allowed my wandering, yet restraining me from greater evils which would have been, so to allow for now and whatever comes.
And it's weird to talk on things in such a way, because there's a lot of aggrandizement in a sense. But...this is all in context of knowing He's far more vast than is conceivable and all of His will and thoughts and ways are so infinitely higher than passing consideration of any of man's scheming could even begin to aspire unto, as being independently or individually impactful unto the all which is. But He is so gracious and intimately involved as to work through us, each unto the next, according to His will.
Even being so far beyond us that it's not possible to comprehend. He knew the end from the beginning, including each and every single instance unfolding in the midst. Without effort, He knows. Simply is.
So individual contemplations of life are only relevant in as much as I know Him and trust Him. And see, in a very tiny way, that He uses the weak to shame the strong. And uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wisdom of man.
The people, the places, years ago. Broken-hearted, even then, longing for some way to bring peace, hope, and heal through love. Apart from directing to Christ, though, each bit given was just a bit of faltering solace in a sea of pain.
Each time returning to a point of any perceived strength, striving and giving again to a point of collapse--again and again, unto so much self-destruction. Even when errantly succumbing to the need for companionship--in desperation, clinging to whatever scraps of compassion could be found.
I remember, numerous people tried to keep me from going back to New Orleans after Katrina. Even with an offer from one for a job working support with legislature at Charleston, WV--accommodation somehow provided, as well, just to keep me from going back. Everyone knew it would be unto death. I did, too.
I had to go back, though. There was no alternative. None which would have allowed anything akin to piece.
My actions weren't holy, by any attempt. My thoughts and tendencies weren't given to obedience to God or reverence for Him, despite erstwhile and continued calling myself seeking to know Him according to my own understanding.
But, still, somehow...in some way I'll probably never understand, the Lord was still making some way. The first private conversation ever had with a new friend, there, at first meeting and being alone with her, was concentric about making the case for Jesus. For His divinity. His resurrection.
Apart from providing some partial witness that was given to me, when He brought me to surrender--at the last conversation via phone, a year ago...she'd still been completely unwilling to even acknowledge Jesus is truth. She'd convinced herself for many long years that He was a fable which mimicked the traditions of so many other religions.
That conversation didn't continue until just after Easter of this year. She contacted me online to ask where His body is--she'd been going through resources, searching the available information on the internet...trying to find out where His body rests.
I told her.
And as part of her questioning, searching, she apparently also went to another of our mutual friends, one known to "know things." He directed her to me. I believe he knows. He's running, too, though.
It's in the Lord's hands. She was so kind to me, always. I miss her. There were so many people who tolerated my presence and even welcomed me, so often, if most did so without concern or compassion.
I'm nothing, less than a grain of sand, and yet He does use us.
Despite us, often.
I don't understand these things. Especially given the utmost wretchedness of so many things endeavored and undertaken. He could have delivered me from sin, so many years ago. He could have broken me under the weight of it all, back then. I was in defiance. I was trying to do things and help people my way...even striving to know God according to my own pursuit, rather than according to His revelation of Himself.
He gave once, just under two years ago, that it was according to His design. Permitted, so to enter preparation. He wasn't complicit in my sin. He was grieved. Sorely grieved. But He allowed my wandering, yet restraining me from greater evils which would have been, so to allow for now and whatever comes.
And it's weird to talk on things in such a way, because there's a lot of aggrandizement in a sense. But...this is all in context of knowing He's far more vast than is conceivable and all of His will and thoughts and ways are so infinitely higher than passing consideration of any of man's scheming could even begin to aspire unto, as being independently or individually impactful unto the all which is. But He is so gracious and intimately involved as to work through us, each unto the next, according to His will.
Even being so far beyond us that it's not possible to comprehend. He knew the end from the beginning, including each and every single instance unfolding in the midst. Without effort, He knows. Simply is.
So individual contemplations of life are only relevant in as much as I know Him and trust Him. And see, in a very tiny way, that He uses the weak to shame the strong. And uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wisdom of man.
Even individually. Pondering all these things, wondering at His involvement despite my utmost wretchedness. Nothing good which came through me was of me, merely He restrained and manifested grace despite me.
This is so especially evident in those moments where my patience runs thin, even now. And when impulsivity is heeded, even now, rather than continual seeking of His will, entire. Catering to self rather than Christ, though more now of something habit still to be disbanded as a vestigial, dead remnant from life and ways prior.
My heart grieves to grieve Him, and yet I do. But for grace. But for knowing the truth of who He is, even in such small measure as is possible at any given instance while yet robed in this flesh which has so long been suffused by preference for delusions exalted against Him.
He provided me with people, though, all the while. People who didn't seem to have dark ulterior motives, despite not honoring God. People who were grateful for companionship for the sake of companionship, in the midst of utter chaos.
Being buffeted on all sides, continually. Mercifully, really.
Had things gone smoothly, easily, well all the time, the delusion that it's possible to know God on any terms but His own may not have come crashing down, eventual. Although...still...He could do these things by any means which He chooses. Yet, sin and idolatry aren't without consequences--whether present or eventual, eternal.
I'm just so grateful to have experienced the consequences and been chastised all the while, in present state. Even with so many times of sinning unto death, then still He has had such mercy.
All the more to honor Him now. Desiring perfection, yet falling so short. Except for Christ, Himself, this would be enough to drive to absolute despair.
I will trust Him. He was doing the things before I ever began to strive to honor Him, out of love desiring obedience because He's worthy and due and...is everything good.. He was preserving and somehow still directing, despite me, all the while. Prevenient grace is what the Methodists call it, or something.
But either way, His grace is manifest to all--rain falls on the just and the unjust.
I don't need to understand. He's God. He's Lord of us all, regardless whether we acknowledge the truth of it (though we all know Him, in our deepest of hearts--despite that He gives us over to delusions of our choosing, as we suppress the truth). So, He can do what He wants. His will is good, at least. Otherwise, we'd all be in a mess.
A total mess. Rather than the one which is, with such pain, disease, brokenness, distress, and death as already seems intolerable. Which, of that--we see this and despair of it, yet still refuse to turn to Him.
How's that for insanity?
We see death, we see disease, we see poverty and destruction and hatred and wickedness and drought and starvation and suffering...and lament it, to some extent even attempting to put temporary fixes...yet we still refuse to do what would address the issue: Repent of our wickedness and turn to God for healing.
That He would heal the land and us all.
If His Word can be believed (Spoiler: It can be. He's God, and as one of the teachers recently perused so well described it--given He was able to create the universe, He's totally capable of dictating/writing a book to effectively communicate with His created beings.)...then, the only healing to come is by tearing down the idols in our hearts and minds, to turn to Him.
Just is. Turning against Him is what reaps the consequences: Broken order of operation? Disjointed function results.
Except that He is so merciful and gracious as to still preserve us, despite our treasonous proclivity for self-exaltation (I mean, seriously, what are we really worshipping, if we esteem anything other than Him?--these other exalted idols are esteemed unto worship as according to our understanding, after all...just as varied manifestations of self worship, then.)
Gratitude is so much different from worship. Being grateful implies a higher esteem as unto a gift giver. Worship implies thus-limited regard for the object of focus--as an end, itself.
There can be a fine line, sometimes, when it comes to necessities for this life, where the objects of usefulness themselves become a point of too ardent focus, seeming entirely means to the desired end, in themselves. Money, for its own sake, is empty of prosperity. Food, for its own sake, is void of substance. Shelter and comfort, for their own sake, are absent security. Fellowship, for its own sake, lacks edification unto meaningful progress. Love, for its own sake, destructively self-consumes rather than proffering any sustenance.
Apart from reverence to God, the giver of all things good, all the benefits of His creation unto us work varied measures of indulgence unto destruction. We aren't capable of prospering apart from Him. We aren't created in such a way as to be capable.
It really is a matter of design. If a machine is made to process grain, and you try to use it to process walnuts, there are going to be problems...if it even works to that end at all. And that's not even a good example, because sin is entirely against created order. Not something that's even remotely akin to designed function, but an absolute deviation. Such that the order is broken.
Calamity is an ordained result. And yet we proceed without attempting to submit to Him, regardless. Trying even further to esteem ourselves as part of addressing the results of our sinfulness--trying to "design" or "plan" out ways to "fix things" ourselves.
There is no recovery on the whole, apart from returning to proper function. Additional errant abuse of liberties isn't going to correct the ills wrought by initial abuse. Further complication of brokenness is all that will and may result, except that He so graciously restrains, so very often.
What, though, when He withdraws His hand of protection?
From personal experience, I can attest that what happens is utter chaos, death, brokenness, and breakdown of all ability to function, whatsoever.
He's merciful that way.
May He help us learn, may He draw us back to Himself, despite ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment