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| Beauty From Ashes Struggling is a beautiful thing. We feel terrible at first because of our misfortune, but we never fail to go back to recount our blessings. Only a self-pitying fool would allow himself to remain mired in his sorrows. We find that in our brokenness too, that God demands- no, He forces us to turn back to Him. Perhaps it's stubbornness or perhaps pride, or a combination of both, I can't exactly say which, that says it's okay to not trust God this one time. But it doesn't matter. It's still embarrassing that it doesn't occur to us how utterly we are in need of Christ during every season of our soul. If every good thing we have (and there are many if you take but a minute to think about it) is given by Him, then why do we always slap away the hand that provides?
But God is gracious, and He allows us to come full circle in our struggles so that we may turn back to Him. We know though that the process itself is not going to be filled with just daisies and sunshine. It can hurt. However, this by definition is struggling. Embrace it. Embrace it because it builds up who you are. As it reads in Roman 5:12, "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings-because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE." The hope of better things to come: the hope of Christ.
Praise God! He is so merciful, and I feel that all words I put out here won't suffice in the slightest in describing His mercy and grace. If God, during our struggles, disallowed us to turn back to Him and demanded, instead, justice, then He would have us pay the impossible consequences of our actions and our sins. But God's grace is truly understood when you deserve whatever punishment you have coming your way, and even then He decides to forgive you regardless. THAT is grace. That is our Father's love. This is the God, who, even after casting my detestable sins from the darkness of my heart and into the light, still forgives and loves me. Thank you Jesus for being nailed to the cross alongside my sin.
Yes, over the past half year, I experienced that my sins run deeper than even I thought. I'm so frail and laughable without the strength God gives me in His grace. I was taught that in all my struggles this past semester- academic, relationships with friends and others, ASUC, my walk with Him- I failed to place Him at the center of everything. I trusted that I could do all these things on my own and still somehow come out on top. What a fool I was. Even with something as large as my sin, I felt like I could solve it on my own: by my own grace, I could forgive myself, and by my own strength, I'd ward off anything else. Alas, my own grace proved cheap and my strength feeble. In trying to remedy my own sins, I realized this very simple and obvious lesson: I couldn't. My sin withstanding, I kept sinning, and sinning, and sinning no matter how I hard I tried to stop. I hadn't fully and completely entrusted myself and my weaknesses to Christ so my sins were never fully absolved from my life.
Think about it this way. If there grows a weed in your yard and you desire to get rid of it, what good will cutting it off at the surface do? Nothing because it will only grow back. You cannot expect for it to go away if you only remove what is showing on the surface. You must go to the very root and pull it out completely. But therein lies the problem. If God's love is like flowing water, the soil of my heart was completely dry, cracked, and impervious because I refused to let Him work. So upon recognizing my sin, the issue wasn't so much a matter of cutting the weed at the surface anymore. I wanted to break into the ground. And I assure you, I tried my damned best, but no matter how hard I tried, the root of the weed was too deep, and the earth too hard.
I felt I had nothing left to give, and I asked God in desperate prayer to teach me what it means to rely on Him fully. Because even when I strove to trust Him more, it was so difficult to place my compete faith in Him all the time. When things were good, there was a constant danger of not having to feel dependent on God. When things were bad, it was tough to trust that all these pieces were moving according to His plan. But Paul exhorts us in Philippians: "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength" (4:13). Amen. And I know I can ask Him to teach me more trust. I had so many excuses back then, but the difference now is that I'm trying and fighting. To all these things, God answered, and mightily at that.
He softened the ground of my heart, where He painfully penetrated the once-impenetrable surface to reach untouched and rich soil. Because we are His children and He our father, like any loving father, He desires to see us grow and be nurtured properly. So there in the newly broken fertility God planted a seed and watched me do just that. I slowly but surely transformed into an impassioned follower of Christ, constantly basking in the golden rays of His love. All throughout the summer, He had me endure so that by summer's end (right after I finished my last final), He gave me a peace that surpassed all understanding. He had me question every single thing I believed and made sure I was completely honest with myself, before He finally gave me the peace I was so desperately looking for. So I truly learned what it means to trust in God and not in myself because in our brokenness God, who loves us, heals us. And His love is more than enough for me. I offered these ashes to Him, and from it, He created something beautiful. What more can I ask for.
"Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:13
It'd be too easy to over dwell on how I messed up last semester, but how can I live in the past? Paul tells us to put your best foot forward and walk towards the present; to not simply forget, but to make something of whatever's happened and to answer Christ's beckoning. Our God is sovereign, and He has planned every imaginable aspect of our life: every good, every bad, every mistake, and every lesson was laid out according to His infinite wisdom... so knowing this, should we have regrets? No, we shouldn't. But what we should do is trust.
Let me share this song with you. I don't mean to be dramatic (and I apologize if it comes off that way), but four words in the chorus capture the essence of the most important lesson- aside from God's love- I learned at the end of this life-changing summer:
"Sweetly Broken" by Jeremy Riddle
At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered.
I love the phrase here, how he puts two seemingly different things in one line. Sweetly broken is what I am, but wholly surrendered is what I will be for you God because You, in love, spared me, and You alone are faithful and gracious.
In ending, I'll leave you with this. A friend I hold dear to my heart once shared this quote during one of our weekly prayer meetings. "The enemy of the best is the good," she said. "The best is Jesus. Good is whatever we love or like that isn't Jesus, which is the best. We tend to resort to the 'good' things when we could be engaging ourselves with the best. If things are 'good' in life, it's hard to rely on the best (Jesus); so when everything is good in life, don't forget that those things can actually be the 'enemy' of the best." I've already noticed a radical growth in me; my relationship with God has matured, and I desire Him because I know what it means to be loved and forgiven. So may I devote every new day to Him and let God reign on the throne of my heart where He belongs. And it is my prayer to keep the spirit of complacency far from my heart because all of this doesn't just end here. This is only the beginning of a truly wonderful thing.
On that note, that was my last entry here :) It's been a wonderful 1956 days, Xanga, but I think it's time for me to move onto newer things... like WordPress! Here's the website.
http://www.scribbleboyphil.wordpress.com
in Christ,
-leeP
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| The Outcome Isn't What You Hoped For... But It's Sweet Anyway.It's 5:35am, and I'm about to retire for the night, but I wanted to jot down a quick thought before I fell asleep.
Since I was staying up late, a friend of mine told me to check out the Perseid meteor shower between 2am-5am. I said I'd finish my work by 4:30am so I could go up to the 4th floor of Piedmont where I'd hopefully catch a handful of shooting stars.
Unfortunately, the night sky directly above me was really cloudy so I couldn't see anything. But what I could see was the ocean and the bay in the distance, the SF city lights, and just about everything in between. Some of it was shrouded in early morning fog, but the view honestly wasn't half-bad. I actually liked it, and I didn't mind so much not being able to see the Perseid showers tonight. I wasn't shown the light from the stars that I'd hoped to see, but my attention was instead pointed to the beautiful city lights before me.
Often times, that's really how God speaks to me: I go in expecting one thing, and He surprises me with something that's pretty different from my expectations. And I like that. Because not only is it amazing that my God is speaking to ME, it trains me to open my eyes and ears in attentive new ways that allow me to see and hear things of God in ways that I might have not been able to before.
Just how big is God's voice? Big enough to be heard in all corners of the Earth. But you have to know what you're listening for in order to hear what is being spoken to you. How big are His hands? Big enough to hold the whole world, right? He's got the whole world in His hands. His fingerprints are on everything everywhere, including gifts He intended to be yours. But you have to see God's hand in all things before you can see that which God has specifically crafted for you. I don't know if I'm making sense, but it makes sense in my head and that's all that matters this late (or early). Good nigh- er, morning.
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| Guide Me, O Thou Great JehovahGuide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim though this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven, Bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more,
feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
whence the healing stream doth flow;
let the fire and cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through;
strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer.
be thou still my Strength and Shield,
be thou still my Strength and Shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside;
bear me through the swelling current,
land me safe on Canaan's side;
songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee,
I will ever give to thee.
--
One of the most beautiful songs written from start to finish.
Praise God for William Williams writing such an awesome hymn.
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| Dietrich Bonhoeffer“The essence of optimism is not its view of the present, but the fact
that it is the inspiration of life and hope when others give in; it
enables a man to hold his head high when everything seems to be going
wrong; it gives him strength to sustain reverses and yet to claim the
future for himself instead of abandoning it to his opponent.”
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| "The brilliance comes in your mistakes- that's how you discover new
things. And the only way to make mistakes is to stretch and take
chances. If you play it safe, you'll never progress"
-Miles Davis to T.M. Stevens | | |
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