Two and a half years ago I recommitted my life to Christ. It was the best decision I ever made, but that does not mean the going has been easy since then. Recently, I have been feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information that I feel I should know as a Christian. I’ve been struggling to figure out how best to study the Bible and have quiet time. I changed my schedule in order to spend my mornings with God, yet the cares of the day scream at me the entire time I’m trying to read or pray. I read a book of the Bible and think about how much I don’t understand about my savior and my faith. For much of the past few years, I’ve been drowning in the waterfall of Christianity. And while I believe my heart was in the right place, my focus has not been.
My heart seeks devotion to Christ. I want to study everything. I want to understand the character of God. I want to understand His word. I want to understand doctrine and language and historical context. I want to feel God’s presence in my life. And I want to act upon the information I’m learning. I want to be radical. I want to be a missionary. I want to be a teacher. I want to go wherever he wants me and do whatever he wants me to do… but I want everything now, and it is too much.
It is easy to talk about quantity over quality when poking fun at CSU and some of their wonderful administrative decisions, but it is much harder to look at my own life and see the folly in my overloaded schedule and compulsion to always do more. For instance, reading and digesting a chapter of the Bible isn’t acceptable. I feel the need to read 5 or 10 or an entire book, and then I close the Bible and wonder what I’ve just read. I want the devotional skills of an 85-year-old rabbi when I’ve only even cared to read the Bible for the past 2 years. I’m a baby, and I need milk and rice cereal. It’s all I can handle. Anything else leaves me drowning in a waterfall… probably because I’m trying to blow up the dam that God’s put there for a reason.
So this morning as I was having my quiet time the Spirit showed me that I need to put on my spiritual glasses, and focus on the proper things: grace, hope, love, etc. My tendency is to read and note all of the verses that point out my weaknesses. I see the verses that talk about my depraved heart. I get the verses that discuss the “grievous way in me” (Psalm 139:24), but when I focus on my failures and shortcomings I feel that old, familiar feeling of drowning, again. My chest constricts and my heart cries out, “Yes, I know I’m terrible, God. But how do I change? What do I do? It feels hopeless. I’m like Paul. I do what I don’t intend to do… and never do what is right.” But, today, the Spirit made me focus on the second part of Psalm 139:24. “lead me in the way everlasting.”
David asks God to reveal David’s grievous ways to him, but he also EXPECTS for God to lead him away from depravity and towards God’s everlasting ways. And there is hope here. Hope and grace and love. David doesn’t stop to grovel and try to convince God to forgive him. He doesn’t whine and give into self-pity because he feels hopeless about the prospect of change. He just asks God to be in control of the entire process—revealing David’s shortcomings and leading David out of them.
And when I focus on letting God lead, everything feels less big. Less impossible. It really makes a lot of sense, you see, because God only gives me my water through a concentrated stream--a fountain. He shoots the appropriate amount of water out at me in a steady arch that my lips know how to handle. He never asked me to swim around in a waterfall and figure out how to take in everything all at once—that was my own idea. God gives us only what we can handle: good and bad. He only gives us trials that will help us grow, AND He only gives us revelations that we can understand and implement in our lives. What good would it be for him to overwhelm us with information if we can’t harness it all and turn it into action?
Today, I'm thanking God for just enough. Just enough revelation to keep me moving towards him, but not enough to keep me weighted down in shame and grief over the depth of my depravity. God is good ALL the time.
God, thank you for not giving me too many answers. Thank you for giving me only the answers and directions for today.
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