“Awake O sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you.”
Ephesians 5:14
Oh how He shines. And how amazing it is to be in the realm of His light! Yet the truth is, for for many months I have despaired and felt as though something were hovering just over my head, blocking His light from shining on me. I felt dead, and I desperately wanted to wake up and overcome it, but something was holding me in this dreadful state. It’s almost like I was asleep and could sense the presence of light near to me but I couldn’t quite bring myself to awaken to it. And I was frustrated by the fact that I could not see clearly! I often found myself wondering “Why can’t I get out of this? Why can’t I figure all this out?! Shouldn’t I be able to discern? I know the answer is in His Word!“. A humbling feeling it is to know how little I really know.
A little background on my struggle:
I have been battling with strong feelings of self-hatred and self-loathing over the reality of my evil, sinful, ever present flesh and the desire but inability to ‘do better’, the desire to overcome my sin. And then, finally, after months of this, I feel I have had a breakthrough, as I read Paul’s words in the 3rd chapter of Philippians: “I press on to make it my own”. To make what his own? The glory of the resurrection. That perfect state that we will arrive at when Jesus returns to bring us into glory. A state that we strive for but never reach in this life. A state that I have been so painfully aware of falling very, very short of. But Paul was also very much aware of his own shortcomings and the constant battle between his flesh and his mind (Romans 7). And yet he wasn’t weighed down by despair! He knew that God was working in Him to bring him to that ‘perfection’ that he had not yet attained, and so he pressed on. His eyes were fixed more on Jesus and His transforming power than they were on his own sinful self and inability.
And so, Paul’s words feel like a ray of light in my present darkness. My eyes begin to re-focus, and I begin to awaken. And I begin to have a deep sense that there is something God wants me to know. Something of great significance that gives meaning to my struggle. I feel God is trying to show and teach me something deep and profound. I think I am finally starting to see the purpose in the way in which He has so wisely and perfectly allowed me to experience this deep despairing of my soul in the realization of the depth of my sin and the realization that there is, ultimately, nothing I can do to escape from the reality of its presence. The toil has been tearing me apart, but it has caused me to do some really serious and persistent searching, thinking, studying, heart probing, crying out in prayer – and maybe most importantly, to keep coming back empty handed to the cross. I know His will is not for me to remain in a state of despair in this life, even though I live in a sinful body and will always live in a sinful body until He brings me home. But I think this experience has been necessary for a time in order for me to truly start to see and feel the beauty of the cross and my never ending need to keep coming back there. There will never be a day in my life when I have become ‘sanctified enough’ or ‘holy enough’, and I think I may be seeing that that is just the point God is trying to make to me:
His love for me today is as great as it will ever be. That is why He died for me and redeemed me! Even before he created me He had set His redeeming love upon me. No amount of holiness or sanctification or right and blameless living is going to make Him love me more. His love for me is in no way connected to anything that I have ever done or am doing or will do. His love for me is rooted in Himself, not me. In Christ’s righteousness, not my own. His love for me is greater than I can understand and beyond my imagination or comprehension. And NOTHING, including the reality of my sin and inability to fully escape from it, can separate me from that love.
So although maybe there is great value in seeing myself as I truly am- wretched and empty- because it keeps me continually realizing the value and beauty of the cross, there is even greater value in realizing who I am in Christ. This is the true me. My life – sin and all- is hidden in Christ. As Paul said in chapter 7 of Romans – “If I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me”. Paul very much distinguishes between his flesh that ‘serves the law of sin’ and his ‘inner being’ that ‘ delights in the law of God’. I think it is time now for me to see myself this way, too. To start striving in accordance with my ‘inner being’. I still accept the truth and reality of my sinful flesh. But I do not live according to it, nor do I let myself be weighed down by it. I live and walk and press on day by day IN CHRIST, in the Spirit. I am righteous because he has given me His perfect righteousness, and I can live joyfully because of that.
This is how I walk in the Spirit: by beholding the beauty and power of Christ and the cross. By growing in my knowledge of God, and in doing so growing in my love for and devotion to Him. As my love for Him grows, I will live more and more in accordance with His will and be drawn to that which pleases Him, and I will live less and less in accordance with my own will and that which pleases my flesh. Ultimately, this will be entirely a work of His grace, not of my effort. I will trust Him in faith to accomplish this work of grace – to accomplish, in His own time and by His own specific means, all that He chooses to accomplish in me in this life. Nothing more and nothing less. I will not attempt to define my own success or failure – I will entrust it all to Him. And throughout this process called life, I will bask in His love. A love that is too great to be explained by mere words or understood by finite minds. A love that He has given to me not because of who I am but because of who He is. Not because I chose Him, but because He chose me. A love that is so secure and unshakable that it cannot be compared to anything of this world or fully understood by anyone in this world.
He has caused me to awaken and to rise from the dead yet again. Not a rebirth as my regeneration was. But a profound awakening, nonetheless. All this despairing had to happen in order that I might see and experience in a new way how and why Christ’s light shines on me.
As I continue to seek Him with my whole heart, my love for Him will transform and grow and become more complete. But His love for me will never change and never grow. It will never be bigger or more complete than it is in this very moment.
The Lord my God, to the praise of His glorious grace, has been doing a great work in me. It has not always been easy. Yet I find myself now less focused on the depth of the trial and more overwhelmed by the height of His greatness and faithfulness. I am humbled and overcome by the way that He chooses to work. I am so incredibly thankful that He loves me enough to do this work. To teach me, to discipline me, to guide me. To use things of great difficulty to reveal things of even greater beauty and joy.
Thanks be to God. To Him be the glory forever.