I remember the times my Christian walk was like a jog, a run, or a full-on sprint. Times I grew by leaps and bounds, times I had questions, ideas, and theories daily. I remember those times like times of spring and summer, like sunlight. I remember them vividly, individual places I was when I thought of this idea that altered my life or that theory that shaped my thinking or what not.
Other times, my life truly is a walk. It's a steady, progressing walk, not quick, not remarkably, but constant and moving. I'm not sitting still, I am following Christ and I'm learning... but other stuff gets in the way and it's hard to go on sometimes.
But then, there's the times where even a day at a time, it's a struggle. No, the struggle isn't to wrestle with deep philosophies and theological concepts. The struggle is to just put one foot in front of the other and trust in the goodness of God. Some days, the stepping is just too hard. Tonight, I can't even step. All I can do is crawl.
I remember running through the sunlight of new ideas and new theories of my faith... and now I'm crawling through the dark and the mist of the grittiness of my faith when it meets the real circumstances of life. When the theories cease to interest and the trust ceases to amaze, and it's all we can do to slide forward another inch without collapsing and screaming at God, "Why?!"
Come to think of it, maybe collapsing and screaming "why?!" is part of the journey. Maybe it's not the exception... maybe it's not the time when I rally don't grow. Maybe, contrary to my first thoughts, just maybe, this is where God grows me the most. Because here, in the dark, without the sun and without the light, is where I learn the hardest concept in Christianity: blind faith.
There's faith and then there's blind faith. Maybe we all use a measure of faith to believe anything we do about anything we didn't personally witness, whether it be evolution or creation, historical data, or archeological finds. But there's times when the evidence and the feelings of my heart scream in my face that God doesn't know, He doesn't understand, He doesn't care... and that is when faith ceases to be enough, and we're forced into the arms of blind faith.
I can't trust God when I'm trudging forward in the mud, a step, a slide at a time, based on evidence and theories. This isn't a time for jauntily debating with a friend the complexities of God's sovereignty or the meaning and sufficiency of the atonement (though those times do exist). This is the time for me to cling with blind faith to Christ as I crawl along the Christian life.
Heaven will be full of saints with a worn robes in the front from the time spent in the dark, prostrate on the ground, done, with just enough strength to take that next push forward. Heaven will be full of the scarred, the beaten down, the bruised, the survivors... the ones who didn't jog their way to heaven or coolly whistle their journey toward Christ. It's full of the sinners and the failures and the exhausted and the ones who struggle to take one. more. step.
"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'These who are clothed in white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?' I said to him, 'My lord, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
We have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. That is who we are. Yeah, those of us who struggle. The failures? The ones who get bested sometimes, who get lonely, who feel loss? Those of us who sin? Those of us who fall short? Us?
Yes, us. We are the they who are clothed in white robes, who have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! And I want to raise my voice to a victory shout when I say that, because we have no washed them to a dinghy gray or a creamy ivory, almost clean, but not quite. No, have washed them white! Pure. Clean. Perfect. New. Justified. Spotless.
Sometimes the journey is a crawl. We don't have the strength to run or jog or even walk. But we serve a God who sees us and makes us pure, clean, and perfect before Him, even in our journey. It's not too long or too hard. It's not too much. Even in the darkness, the hard times, He is there... and He is enough. He is always enough.
Other times, my life truly is a walk. It's a steady, progressing walk, not quick, not remarkably, but constant and moving. I'm not sitting still, I am following Christ and I'm learning... but other stuff gets in the way and it's hard to go on sometimes.
But then, there's the times where even a day at a time, it's a struggle. No, the struggle isn't to wrestle with deep philosophies and theological concepts. The struggle is to just put one foot in front of the other and trust in the goodness of God. Some days, the stepping is just too hard. Tonight, I can't even step. All I can do is crawl.
I remember running through the sunlight of new ideas and new theories of my faith... and now I'm crawling through the dark and the mist of the grittiness of my faith when it meets the real circumstances of life. When the theories cease to interest and the trust ceases to amaze, and it's all we can do to slide forward another inch without collapsing and screaming at God, "Why?!"
Come to think of it, maybe collapsing and screaming "why?!" is part of the journey. Maybe it's not the exception... maybe it's not the time when I rally don't grow. Maybe, contrary to my first thoughts, just maybe, this is where God grows me the most. Because here, in the dark, without the sun and without the light, is where I learn the hardest concept in Christianity: blind faith.
There's faith and then there's blind faith. Maybe we all use a measure of faith to believe anything we do about anything we didn't personally witness, whether it be evolution or creation, historical data, or archeological finds. But there's times when the evidence and the feelings of my heart scream in my face that God doesn't know, He doesn't understand, He doesn't care... and that is when faith ceases to be enough, and we're forced into the arms of blind faith.
I can't trust God when I'm trudging forward in the mud, a step, a slide at a time, based on evidence and theories. This isn't a time for jauntily debating with a friend the complexities of God's sovereignty or the meaning and sufficiency of the atonement (though those times do exist). This is the time for me to cling with blind faith to Christ as I crawl along the Christian life.
Heaven will be full of saints with a worn robes in the front from the time spent in the dark, prostrate on the ground, done, with just enough strength to take that next push forward. Heaven will be full of the scarred, the beaten down, the bruised, the survivors... the ones who didn't jog their way to heaven or coolly whistle their journey toward Christ. It's full of the sinners and the failures and the exhausted and the ones who struggle to take one. more. step.
"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'These who are clothed in white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?' I said to him, 'My lord, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
We have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. That is who we are. Yeah, those of us who struggle. The failures? The ones who get bested sometimes, who get lonely, who feel loss? Those of us who sin? Those of us who fall short? Us?
Yes, us. We are the they who are clothed in white robes, who have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! And I want to raise my voice to a victory shout when I say that, because we have no washed them to a dinghy gray or a creamy ivory, almost clean, but not quite. No, have washed them white! Pure. Clean. Perfect. New. Justified. Spotless.
Sometimes the journey is a crawl. We don't have the strength to run or jog or even walk. But we serve a God who sees us and makes us pure, clean, and perfect before Him, even in our journey. It's not too long or too hard. It's not too much. Even in the darkness, the hard times, He is there... and He is enough. He is always enough.
He is enough. I've had to tell myself that for the past few days, as I've had to let go again of the things I thought were enough to satisfy.
ReplyDeleteI was writing something very similar to this just yesterday curled up in my room. So I really can't tell you how much this is helping. Thank you.