08/12/14

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

[Psalm 103.8-14]

A certain liberation is found when you set aside the presumption and just confess, "I'm fucked up. I'm in need of so much healing. I don't have it all together. I love You, I want to serve You, I want to be like You. But my heart grows weary, and my strength falters, and my vision grows dim." These are realities. There's no reason to deny them. I feel that so often my prayers are filled with presumption, that I'm trying to set my best foot forward. I'm willing to confess my weaknesses before others, but when I come before God, I want Him to see me as strong, unwavering, and resilient, not prone to bouts of apathy, not tempted to wander, freed from all doubt. The truth is that I'm all those things, and for so long I've believed that by being those things, I'm not only an awful person, but also an awful Christian. Thus the disappointments in my life come not because we live in an unfair world where we hurt and wound each other deeply, but because God is orchestrating my life to punish me. God's plan for my life becomes a plan that involves torturing me because I'm not and never will be good enough. There is a certain liberation that comes when you realize, "Holy shit, everyone else is just like me." Christians are made new; but yet we carry a body of death around over our shoulders, a rotted corpse that won't be eradicated until the Final Day. Until then, I have nothing to lean on but grace.

I am full of earth, You are heaven's worth.

I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity.

You are everything that is bright and clean,

the antonym of me, You are divinity.

But a certain sign of grace is this:

from the broken earth flowers come up,

pushing through the dirt.

You are everything that is bright and clean,

and You're covering me with Your majesty.

And the truest sign of grace was this:

from wounded hands redemption fell down, liberating man.

And the harder I try, the more clearly can I feel

the depth of our fall, and the weight of it all.

And so this might could be the most impossible thing:

Your grandness in me, making me clean.

I am full of earth, and dirt, and You

(David Crowder, Wholly Yours)