Some time ago -- perhaps three years back -- the Lord stopped me in my tracks with a verse (Psalm 68:6b):
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
"I can leave you here in the parched land. Your call," He said.
All this time later, I can say He has been very busy. I have had to confront some painful things about myself these past few years. I've had to begin to relearn things. I've failed A LOT; I still fail a lot.
Surrendering my heart to Jesus has been easy. He's magnificent. I adore Him. He is gradually revealing to me how much He adores me. I am clean and forgiven before Him, not because of my level of obedience, but because of what He did for me in taking my sin as His own and receiving my punishment. I will not be re-tried for what He has already been tried and punished for on my behalf. So, this struggle is not about making myself worthy. I might want to repeat that, because I still forget it sometimes: this struggle is not about making myself worthy.
As easy as surrendering my heart to Him has been, the lessons about surrendering the moments of the day to Him have been excruciating. Failure, at least in one or two key areas, pretty much every day. For years. Primarily this has been a lack of discipline issue, but recently I've become aware that to some extent the Lord has also been either blocking me or allowing me to become blocked. I don't know why yet.
Last night, having attempted for untold ages to accomplish a task that normally would be fairly intuitive for me, I finally got to the end of my rope. "I will have to quit," I said. "You've obviously taken away my gift."
What followed was not a good night. I tried to sleep but couldn't, so I got up and distracted myself on the Internet. Eventually I was tired and numb enough to try again to get to sleep, but during the mindless hours in the interim, my rebellion gradually peaked. ("You gave me this task, then You took away my ability to complete it. What a mean trick.") At one point I actually physically felt His hurt in response to my anger. I am not proud to say that I did my best to ignore it.
I got to sleep at around 3 a.m. Before I slept, I acknowledged to the Lord that of course my gifts were His to take away or give as He saw fit, and that He could do what He liked with anything I have, including my gifts.
When I woke up, five and a half hours later, in an attempt to escape some exceedingly strange dreams, the first thing I heard was a very faint whisper: "I haven't taken away your gift."
We made up the rift this morning. I told Him (among other things) that it was a very good thing my standing with Him was not based on me, but on Him.
He asked me to go to Psalm 68. I had forgotten what was in Psalm 68, but I wasn't all that surprised to re-read that verse, reminding me that only the rebellious dwell in a parched land. Yes, I deserved to see that this morning.
I kept reading and turned the page. And then I saw it. Interestingly, He must have blocked the link between the two verses when He gave me verse 6 originally. But today He took me intentionally to part two. Psalm 68, verse 8:
You shed abroad a plentiful rain, O God;
You confirmed Your inheritance when it was parched.
He Himself is the plentiful rain. And when it was parched -- while I was in a parched land, still capable of rebellion against Him -- He confirmed His inheritance to me.
I love You, Jesus.
I love You, Jesus.
I love You, Jesus.