I think today marks something significant in my life.
Something has been weighing on me in the last week. Something that has a name, but with it carries an inevitable sense of pain and suffering........with a great sense of a future reward, but because I want nothing to do with pain, I have tried my very best to avoid it, to not even find out its name. However, I quickly found out I am powerless to stop what God was bringing into my life. It slowly came, starting with some small nudges and growing to a consistent, pulsing presence that reminded me, "I'm here! Not going anywhere. You can choose what you will do with this, but I'm still here and I'm still coming." It invaded areas of my life that I believed were going well, where I was experiencing what I would call "blessings". It hit intimacy with my new husband. It hit my call to counsel others. It hit my role at work. It hit my relationships. It hit my positive outlook. Slowly, every area where I had found some comfort was invaded and taken over. And yes, I STILL struggled against facing what God was directly calling me to face. It hurt, darn it, and I didn't want to go there!
So this morning, another nudge came in the form of a mistake by my husband. It hurt, yes, and he owned to his sin in it, but God took it and used it as another nudge in my life. I really thought I could wait this hard period out, that somehow the nudges and the pain would stop. It's like I told God, "I can wait out what You're doing. You'll tire eventually of bringing it. If I avoid facing it, You'll stop." I wince as I write that, because in it I see my tiny view of God as a sinful human and my rebellious heart.
I came to work this morning and I couldn't do much. I wanted to escape. He won't let me. He's calling me to repent. So here's the story.
Last week, I started noticing a desire to eat for comfort, to check out, to watch movies, to sleep A LOT, to stop writing and reading (which I normally love). This hadn't happened in awhile, and it caught my attention. "Hm, that's not normal. I can see these are ways I try to check out when life gets too hard. What's going on?" So I fought the temptations as best I could and kept praying.
In the mornings while getting ready, I normally listen to a sermon by John Piper. Also last week, I hit his "Spectacular Sins" series, which talk about how God INTENDS (not uses horrible sins, but intends them) spectacular sins for His glory and our good. As I listened to the one about Joseph, God spoke clearly to me about how He intends suffering for His purposes. It was crystal clear to me. I remembered conversations I had had with people who asked why God allows suffering and pain and evil, and I wanted to go back to them and tell them what I had just heard. "It's for His plan! He doesn't just use suffering and sin, He intends it! In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers who sold him into slavery where he ended up in Egypt, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today" (and I would recommend listening to John Piper's sermon, "The Sale of Joseph and the Son of God"). In an interview, John Piper said about Genesis 50:20, "And the key is that Genesis says, "You meant..." but it doesn't say, "God used...." Rather, it says, "You meant it for evil and God meant it for good," which means that God had a meaning in your meaning, and through your action God had an action. And the book is about how God ordains and causes sin to have a certain redeeming effect." The NIV states, "...you intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.."
So God was speaking gently to me every morning about sins and suffering being intended for good, and I was hearing from Him. He then told me to keep my journal more often, daily, so I could write out what was happening, what I was hearing from God, what I was experiencing, to identify lies and truth, and to see how God is working in my life. I wrote that down, but I disobeyed and did not begin keeping my journal daily. Then the nudges started. Pain began entering my life in various ways. Things began going differently than I had hoped. A couple times, I responded in anger towards my husband and was convicted of that sin and got to repent to him, but I didn't repent of my sin of disobedience to the LORD. I still went on, hoping that the pain would stop and life would return to where it was before, aka where I wanted it.
God loves me too much to give me what my sinful flesh wants. He kept bringing pain, and it kept coming more consistently. And when I say pain, I mean things like: husband sins against me, I sin against him and God, small mis-communications, corrections from those in leadership above me about my work, a friend does not reach out to me in the way I want, and since I had also been idolizing people's opinion of me, that hurt. You can see as I list these out, they are gifts from my Father, who is correcting me as I sin. But I didn't see them this way, as I was still disobeying God and wanting life on my terms. I simply looked at my circumstances and hated the pain.
This morning, I was reading in Numbers, and God used the Israelite's grumbling to show me my heart. They would obey the LORD one day, and they would so quickly forget His promises and His great and mighty works and grumble against Him the next. It was SO revelatory and familiar to me. I knew exactly what they were doing because I was doing it. They grumbled because they didn't want the manna anymore; they wanted meat. They grumbled because they were in the wilderness and couldn't find water. They grumbled about Moses' leadership and wanted to appoint a new leader to take them back to Egypt and slavery. That one got me. I had been telling God I didn't want His way; I wanted my slavery back. Ooof!
So I get to work this morning, and am pressed to repent. I can't live this way anymore. Out came about 3 pages in my journal of confession and the ways I had been sinning against God, and it was a relief to name them all. I felt sick with my disobedience and my rebellion. I HATED how self-absorbed I had become. As I've been in the Old Testament, reading the law of God before Jesus came, and how severely God took sin and how much blood needed to be shed to atone for sin, I've been feeling more of the gravity of sin. One has only to read a few sentences of the laws about cleansing to see how seriously God takes sin. I see more clearly the gift Jesus gave us by becoming our sacrificial Lamb, who atoned for our sins, who was both the sin offering and the guilt offering, who has redeemed His chosen ones from the curse of sin and death. Every sin needed to be paid for by blood. Period. And the lamb that was offered needed to be spotless. An animal with a blemish could not be used for a sacrifice to atone for sin. What that meant to me, is that my own blood wouldn't be enough to pay for my sins. I'm imperfect. I'm a sinner. I've already blown it thousands of times. I have no way of saving myself. So I can throw myself onto the grace of God through Jesus Christ and depend fully on Him for my salvation, freedom, restoration, redemption, healing, and life with Him everlasting.
I have nowhere else to go.
Jesus, thank you for being my sacrifice, my perfect Lamb who died so I could live. Thank you for obeying your Father perfectly. Thank you for interceding for me on my behalf. Thank you for forgiving me and granting me repentance. Thank you for what you have called me to do. And thank you for the pain you have brought me, which has only done good for me! I don't have any hope without You, and I now look to You and You alone for my purpose, my fulfillment, my life. I know it's not about me getting what I want. It is only about You and Your glory. Please help me seek that all my days, and please draw me back quickly when I stray. Thank you for intending sin and evil for Your good and perfect plan. That blows my mind and I cannot comprehend it. And so I worship you.
