Tonight, I felt myself simultaneously slipping and paralyzed because of a hundred good things.
I grew up learning about the will of God. Romans 12:2 calls His will, “good, acceptable, and perfect.” That’s where I want to live.
Yet often I find myself so scared of missing the will of God that I don’t do anything at all. Or maybe I get so frustrated at my apathy that I lash out in action – not carefully considered action, but spontaneous (and ultimately meaningless) action.
We worry and we think. We talk it out or we write. These things merely help us to see our own minds and the confusion inside. It’s what we do next that matters most.
Come to God
Come to Him tired and panting. Come to Him, weak and frail.
Today I chose to fast, and it’s only now that I realize I’ve been fasting with wrong motives. I’ve used fasting as my excuse for God to accelerate movement in my life, forgetting that knowing God is about a relationship, not a race.
I want to do the best I can for Him, yet I won’t truly do excellently until I realize I can do nothing at all. All of my best ambitions are dirt, and all of my self-glorifying schemes are scum in comparison to knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:8).
Writing, serving, working – isn’t it true that we get lost in these things at the expense of the greatest thing? Not that these are wrong, but that we use them as an end in themselves (or perhaps more accurately, as an end to ourselves).
My open prayer to God
So here I am, Lord. Desperate. And for the first time today, I’m willing to admit it. I’m not just needy; I’m destitute. I’m not just hungry; I’m famished. And You’re okay with that. You need me to stop proving how much I can do on my own and simply admit that I don’t know that much. I can’t do that much. Heck, I can’t even make it a day without food.
But You’re God everlasting. You never fade, never pale, never get tired or worn. And in an amazing miracle, Isaiah 40:31 says I can renew MY strength by waiting on You.
Maybe life isn’t about proving how far I can get. Maybe life is about proving how far You went – all the way to the cross – so that I could come to you in my need and be satisfied.
Psalm 32:6-7
Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
Romans 5:6-8
For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
“God isn’t waiting for you to clean up your act before you come to Him.” I told that line to a guy on the street yesterday. But now I need to hear it for myself.
If I am ever to be the man God wants me to be, I must die. I must come to the cross, look upon the man hanging there, and sing: