WRESTLING IN MY FAITH WITH GOD

THOUGHTS ON MY SINFULNESS

I want to satisfy God with my life, but I know that I am selfish and wrestle with many things, and yet, my heart is to be close to God.  Each time my soul turns to the world and flesh for satisfaction I feel a deep darkness and pain.  I don’t want to cling to the world, but I still do.  There are days when the wrestling is too much and I burst into tears.  I want to be free from this carnality.  I want to be spiritually pure.  I don’t want to rest in the world, but I want to rest in Christ in heaven.

As soon as I think I have risen I fall again.  I don’t understand the process of the purgation of the soul.  I am not as smart as I might long to be.  I become simpler in my faith the older that I get.  I just want Jesus.  I just want to please Him.  I don’t know if I do.

Recently I was thinking about how someone complemented my faith when they said that they were amazed at my example.  I was in a foreign land where people who came from my country were considered heathens and drunkards.  They talked about how I wasn’t like other men and then named the sins that my countrymen wrestled with.  For years, I retold this story.  I talked about how they saw me and how they were touched by my example of faith.  And then I thought more about it.  I was an actor and hid the deepest parts of my being from them.  I hid behind words and phrases.  I, on the inside, was no different than these other men.  I was just more quiet with my sinfulness.

No, it isn’t that I do not wrestle like other men, but rather that I have come to a place where I can hide the wrestling behind a religious facade.  I can hide behind words that sound holy and wholesome.  I can see with the same fleshly eyes but speak in such a way that no one understands the wrestling that really takes place in my life.  The truth is I probably wrestle more.  If I was in a court, and the devil was speaking against me, and if the Lord listened, I would be lost for all eternity just like any other man, but the Grace of God.

THOUGHTS ON MY FAITHLESSNESS

I am losing myself daily to deeper faith.  I am now on a journey so far from where I began that now I realise there is no going back.  The journey has been long.  I am a pilgrim and have sacrificed my best years to the Lord.  If He is done with me then I will rest my head within the grave.  If His word is not true, I will know it because I am now too far on the path to live any other way.

My faith has grown and been reduced.  He has reduced me.  He has taken so much from me.  He took my career.  He took home.  He takes my pride.  He keeps reducing me so that I have nothing to brag about except Him alone.  This season of reduction has been the hardest.  I know that I am bankrupt, and I know that I can do nothing without Him. 

I don’t think I fear death.  I don’t think I fear pain.  I do fear being poor in old age.  The path that I took in the Lord has resulted in sacrifices that have cost me more than I thought I would pay.  All these years I felt the Lord would give me more and more.  I felt I sowed into the Kingdom and so I would reap financially.  Now I am not so sure.  For me this is a frightening prospect. 

In my heart of hearts, I guess I know He will be faithful, but there are nights I lie awake wondering if He will take care of me.  I wonder more about my theology.  I wonder if finances are really part of the blessing.  Can I trust Him to continue to provide.  I don’t have any current evidence of my future being blessed.  I must trust Him with it.  I do see the blessing on other lives, so I have some evidence, but I still don’t know.  I am still learning to be faithful and to trust His faithfulness.

As I said, I am so far down the path of faith that I can’t really change now.  If I am headed for disaster in Christ, I guess I will meet Him there. 

I saw my grandparents get old and watched the Lord take care of them.  My grandfather told me His favorite scripture was Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make you path straight.”

The more you live in Christ the more you see Him doing this very thing in your life, but it is not always as you imagined.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”

I don’t know exactly where I am headed.  I don’t know the cumulation of the path.  Where will I end up.  What will it be like to die and see Jesus.  I will learn all these things, but I must live and walk the life that He has for me.  These experiences will come.  I will find my way to the father.  I will live my life for Him.  He will cleanse me, heal me and provide for me, but I must trust.  I do trust, but that doesn’t mean I am not afraid.  I fear and live for Him anyway.

Perhaps you have wrestled in similar ways.  I pray for you today and ask the Lord to strengthen you.  I ask Him to be close to you like your breath so that you feel Him in your inner person.  May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you.