Sometimes there is this sense of oppressive hostility, pressing in from all sides. Terror is mine, in the midst of that--sensing my life and breath would be crushed out in an instant, if what presses in were permitted free rein.
Trusting the Lord and submitting to Him and pleading His aid--being in the Word, testifying of His grace, calling to remembrance His mercies, praying, and jointly bringing these matters into subjection to the truth of Christ through fellowship (by any means, thus), is my help. True medicine. Each to each, though, by whatever means of grace the Lord allots and directs.
This is mine.
The Lord has been so merciful these past many years, when such moments have constituted an onslaught: prayerfully submitting to Him in the midst, He has given grace to trust His will be done, His arm of preservation and deliverance (if even into life eternal, quite immediate) be shown mighty. He has given me grace to avert my mind from the deluge of thoughts which erstwhile and throughout attempt to drown, also. I falter and flail, but He preserves and restores. Eventually, the morning comes. Or, eventually, I know it will.
Being still in the midst of such distress, waiting, is beyond me. But the Lord gives grace to commit to trust Him. Increasingly, He's even given grace to repent of faltering in the midst, because that does happen so easily.
In whatever circumstance, may we yearn and learn to trust Him, then. By any means. And to trust Him to guide.
There's been a lot of consideration of Christ as Shepherd, lately: The Good One.
The One despised and rejected, suffering in His own flesh the penalty of my sin--of your sin. He atoned for us. God's own wrath (moreover, Christ's own wrath) against sin--His righteous wrath, just wrath--was satisfied wholly by Him. Propitiation. Expiation. And there's a third facet, I think--related as another fine point of consideration, only begun to be pursued--of what He accomplished for us.
God's wrath, which rested upon us, was satisfied by Jesus, in full. The Only, Wise God: He satisfied justice by His own account being clear, though settling ours--to enable mercy within the paradigm of absolute, perfect, pure righteousness.
That Shepherd. Who laid down His life for the sheep...
...so that we may enter in.
This...remembrance of this: Jesus Christ, and His great mercy and love...is what is needful in the midst of such onslaught. Remembrance of Christ, refusing to heed any other voice which would detract from or distract from Him--for as surely and as soon as thoughts and my heart turn, then the darkness encumbers, once again. Yet, He overcame.
All the more to simply rest in Him, as knowing Him. All the more to be grateful to truly know Him. Apart from which, all the rest--darkness and all the world and self--would usurp any hope for serenity.
It's not a bad thing to be on such a short leash, though. Not at all. Not having the same liberties others have is fine, given what it is to have peace. Even this short period of reflection on Christ's mercies has been such an aid. Yet, there's no room to turn from this--there is no space for social media, in this. There's no allocation for movies or secular music. Moreover, being in the midst of the world to endeavor the things of life is an undertaking to the glory of the Lord--with some consistent amount of conscious recognition of that fact fairly continually--or otherwise I'd stay in the grips of the terrors of darkness there, always.
So, too, are other matters which become recognized as allowing a foothold for the darkness to press in: prayerfully weighed, all the more. Whatever is needful, in serving Christ, well enough--He will preserve me, and I will trust Him: In spite of my all-insufficiency, as His abject sufficiency eternally usurps on all fronts. So, onward then.
And to praise. That is next. To sing His praises, no matter the darkness: for He is the Light.
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