Learning by doing takes grace. It takes grace on yourself, takes belief that God is within, that God directs, that God loves us and seeks our good. We have to trust his grace, that's it's big enough to redeem our failures. Which brings us back to the beginning.
Learning by doing takes grace on yourself. You have to be ok with the possibility of failure.
The gravity of my sin is ever before me. Like the psalmist, I know it well. And I know the ability of my heart to sin even still. Even though I know there is no satisfaction in it, still I am tempted to seek my joy elsewhere. And so I am afraid, afraid I will sin, that I will walk away, that grace cannot hold me. And so I don't want to take risks. I want to structure my life so that every moment of every day is filled with spiritual things and so to eliminate temptation and time to sin.
Unfortunately, that is trusting in myself again. Which, by the by, is sin.
You can't win like that. You can't righteousness yourself out. You must trust another. You must be carried.
And part of being carried, oddly enough, is doing things in which you may fail. Without risk you cannot trust. Perhaps it is better said that trust risk establishes trust. At least, I cannot trust without risking. If I do not risk, I protect myself, but do not let Christ protect me.
It's somewhat like me sitting on the beach in shorts in 32 degree weather, next to a 32 degree ocean. Jesus offers me a drysuit if I swim. I can sit in my shorts and 'protect' myself, but honestly my chances are way better in a drysuit in the ocean. I could never survive by myself in the water. But at 32 degrees, I can't survive by myself on land either. Risking involves trusting, and, at least in my heart, is the only way for me to walk in salvation.
Wednesday night I went to worship at SAMP. They taught on silence. I was tired. I layed down in the pews, but sat up when I was afraid I'd start snoring. The verse that says 'there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God' was in my mind, without any apparent reason. In the end I got up and went to the front alter to pray. I noticed an acquaintance praying as I wanted to, prostrate. I joined him. After a while he left and a stranger took his place. He was a stronger man, tattoos hinting at some military service. He was in a rough spot, and I asked God if He had anything for me to say to this guy. 'Ezekial 34' came to mind, which sounded familiar, but I didn't know why. I grabbed a Bible and read it- it was a meaningful verse from this summer, and is all about God become our shepherd, and is stunningly beautiful and encouraging. I asked God if it was for me, or for the group, or for the guy. I didn't hear anything, but since it had come to mind when I was asking for him, I eventually slid the Bible across the aisle to him and pointed to vs. 11, where the good stuff starts. He started reading and immediately began sobbing. A real divine appointment, as we've been talking about in IMPACT.
I was admittedly jealous. I wanted God to meet with me with the same level of emotion. So I asked God if He had any scripture for me. Psalm 45. So I opened it up. It was another meaningful verse from the summer. It says "Let your right hand teach you awesome deeds!", which roughly translated, means have some confidence in me in your. Receive my grace, and have some for yourself, as you
Learn from Doing.
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Sidenote 1: I woke up the next morning. The first chapter I read included 'be still and know that I am God' and 'There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God," both relating strongly to the night before. Still not sure what God is teaching me through those, but encouraged to sit on them a while longer.
Sidenote 2: I'm going to attempt to post with more regularity. Every Sunday and Thursday night. James Bond almost kept me from posting tonight. But never fear, I wrote ahead of time.
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