A while ago I wrote a post entitled Enough. Through it, some heart surgery was performed as I openly admitted a lot of my personal fears and shortcomings as a child of God. I talked about how I look at my actions and my life and I see little confidence. I talked about how my future is daunting because of doubt and fear. I talked about how when I look at God, or to God, I feel completely unworthy to stand before him, even in repentance, even when covered by the blood of Christ.
In the past month, since that post, God has been talking to me a lot. The one statement that still runs through my mind is “With all you do, all the reading you do, and how much you feel you need to know more, I don’t think you’ve given yourself enough credit.”
That statement has been reinforced, time after time after time over the past few weeks. While listening to Matt Chandler two weeks ago God made something very clear to me. I tend to look at where I am and then look to the Bible, the law, and I see how sick I am, how far I am from perfection, and under my own strength I try and get better. I go if I do this, I’ll be better. I have been trying to fight temptation for over 12 years in this. I can do it, I know what I need to do. But in Honesty I don’t.
"The Law is this diagnostic tool that shows you your need for a Savior, and then once you have that Savior, once you have that healing, the diagnostic switches and becomes a path for the fullness of life. When the Law says this is how marriage should work, he's not trying to take from you. He's trying to give to you. That is how he created it to be. Walk in this. There is more joy walking in it this way than your way, so the gospel will never lead to licentiousness. If you can walk in licentiousness, then you don't believe the gospel." - Matt Chandler
It is when we assume we have our lives under control, though saved, that we fall into sinful living. We fall into it because we basically swat the guiding hand of God away and tell him we can do it.
In a sermon given by my pastor last night, he used a story that illustrates this so well. He talked about how he was watching his son struggling with untying a double-knot on his cleats as he was trying to get ready for soccer. My pastor said he looked at his son and thought,” I know exactly what he needs, and I know how to get him to where he wants to go, but he wouldn’t let me help. ‘I got this Da Da’”.
I have done this so much lately. You know God, I can do it. I got it. I know how to get there. I justneed to avoid it. I just need to tell someone. I just need to think about something else, and to no avail, I give in. Chained to the sin, that I have so desperately wanted to escape from. That I so desperately flee, but only find myself drifting back to. Getting back to my point, I don’t go to Christ in these times. I don’t find myself praying, or asking for help I just walk right back into it, “Don’t worry, I got this.”
This translates to so much more than just this sin as well. I find myself looking to my relationship with God and saying, I’m not where you want me yet. I’ll read more, I’ll spend more time with you, I’ll give you more, and then I don’t. In all of those wants, to love him more, I still do not ask him for help. “It’s all on me, I got this.”
To be honest, I don’t got this. I have never had this. I barely recognize what “this” is most of the time. I look inward, not upward. I look to my own strength, not to God’s. I look to my own power not to God’s. When I see my own strength and power I recognize that I am weak and often powerless. In the moment I say I got this, I’m strong enough. In retrospect I go, I’m not strong enough alone. I can’t fight a battle against the enemy with the Power, and strength of God.
I see my relationship with God so skewed at times. So selfish, so quiet because he stands there waiting to say something, waiting to help me out, and my back is turned and I’m doing it my way. Even when I pursue God, I find myself not finding him, because, in truth I seek knowledge of Him, not Him. I seek blessings from him, not him. I seek help from him, not HIM. I don’t just go, “God, I love you. I want to see your face, I want to know you more.” I don’t look to him, but past him.
In seeing this, it lends me to understand something else. I look inward to myself, knowing full well that alone, I don’t got this. Career wise, relationship wise, I don’t got it; but I do have Christ. “I have power in my corner.” When I look to God with a humble heart, seeking his help, seeking HIM out, and running from the sin that disrupts my relationship with Him, I have God right beside me, helping me through it. I know it because I’ve seen him move in my life.
When I was given the opportunity to give the message for the Youth Group that I serve, I found myself in a world of trouble. At the time I was trying to find a way to raise $1200 to go to Mexico, and I certainly didn’t have that money, and then my Jeep broken down. The engine had thrown a rod and I needed a brand new engine. My finances were especially tight, and I didn’t have a ride. With all of this going on, I was struggling with giving into temptation, I was emotionally drained from pursuing a relationship and seeing it thrawted, and work was extremely stressful. This was all going down right when I started trying to prepare for the message. My life was messy, I didn’t know what to do, so I looked up.
I just kept looking to God through all of it. Not after the fact or the ending would be very different but during it. Before any decision was made I prayed. Before I jumped away from the promises of God, and the faith I had in Him, I prayed.
I received discounts in order to afford a rental car, my friends and church family generously donated to send me to Mexico, I built an even more important friendship from the failed pursuit, I was given the Money to have the engine replaced, and I slept like a baby.
I was stressed over the message, but God moved. I felt God speaking on top of my words, and through my stories. I felt the presence of God so much that my stage fright was nothing. I spilled my heart and felt God’s encouragement. I loved it, and I want to do it again.
None of that would have been possible without God right there the whole time. However, just like most of us I forget to look to Him in everything. I forget to talk to Him about everything as I did that week. In forgetting, to talk to God, I forget about the Gospel, about God’s love, and the sacrifice that Christ made. I don’t completely forget, but I take my eyes off of Christ and place them on myself. In those moments, I forget about who I am in Him, and through him.
The retreat, Be glorified, Brought this to light by making it clear as God was trying to tell me all month, “hey buddy, glory be to God, to Me, not you.” Those gifts, abilities, and that personality you have, yeah I gave those to you. I gave those to you, to glorify Me. So that, you may reflect my son, and serve me and your brothers and sisters. I made you, to be you. I made you strong, I gave you that heart, and I know what you need. I know when you are weak, and I hate watching you struggle when I can help you. I love you, my son, if you would just see me. If you could just see me in you, you would know you are enough.”
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:7.
When I see Christ in me, I recognize who God is, and what he has done. He has performed miracles in my life. Miracles I wish to share the stories of, His stories. He took a broken boy, and has made him into a man who has helped so many people.
"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." - Galatians 6:14
I don’t this in boasting, for I never which to boast in my own strength, but I have been blessed to know that God is using me to help my friends and family. I am humbled, greatly, when someone thanks me for just listening, or just being me, because I’m not doing anything special. I am greatly humbled when I come before God, as I did this weekend, and he tells me that He is Proud of me. All I desire to do is love him perfectly, and in that obey him, please him, worship him, seek him. I fail, I mess up, I doubt the changes he has made in me, but I know at the end of the day I am loved by a God who deserves so much more than I give him, and yet he will never stop loving me.
Carrying that thought around of how loved I am, and desire to Love him more I see where he wants me to be. More than that I have begun to understand that I want to do what he has made me to do, to obey him and to show love. Not just that, but in wanting to be a pastor, he is showing me that because I am in Him, and He is in me, I will be a pastor one day. He is maturing me, and granting me wisdom and strength, but in those moments where I am exhausted, and run down, he’s right there encouraging me, and lending his strength and power. The wisdom I have is from HIM, the abilities I have are from HIM, the personality, as weird as it may be, I have is from HIM, the gifts that I have been empowered with are from HIM.
I can walk in confidence, when I walk in Christ. For when I keep my eyes on Jesus, and my mind on the Gospel, I find myself following God. I can have confidence in myself, especially when I serve God, because HE designed me, HE Transforms me, He Loves me, and He wants to be glorified through me. When I speak of God, when I serve God, I hope to do it with passion, and a love that can only reflect God. I hope to point to God in all I do, and all I say. I hope to rely on Him when I think I can do it alone, and I hope to rest in the confidence that because of Him, I am enough. I may not be as eloquent as I would like to be, but I know that God will move through these words, and speak to you. I can only do the work God has set before me, the tool, the words, and I can speak and serve with the confidence that he will use me because he is the carpenter who uses the tool, the voice that permeates through the words.
I hope I did not come across as boastful or prideful, but wish you to know that God has changed me, made me, and will use me, If I let him, but that takes being willing, and having the confidence that I can be used and more than that trust God that he will use me. I stillhave much to learn, and a lot of molding to undergo. Knowing that, it may take a while before I start seminary or some other training, and it may be a while until I meet and start courting the woman I will marry, but I know it these things will happen. I know because I trust God, and because he has shown me that when the time comes I will be enough to do these things; my confidence is from Him and in Him.
Love You All,
Nate
Honor God, Honor Others, and watch what happens to you.
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