Ezana
Ιησούς Χριστός Νικά
- Oct 22, 2020
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- Canada
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- Eastern Orthodox
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- Single
Hey, man. I also just recently made an account, though I've been lurking on the forum for a fair bit of time now. Anyways, you've heard it already, but believe me: however deep you think the pit you've got yourself into is, it's never too deep for Christ.
I was what you might call "on fire for the Lord" as a young teen, entering high school; by the time I left, I was thoroughly devoid of any connection to God. Obviously, a lot happened in between these two points of time for things to have turned out the way they did, but suffice it to say, if I were to tell you all the details of my journey during these years and the years that followed, the one thing you would learn about me is this: I have done truly evil and wicked things in my life. But thanks be to God, Who is mighty to save. One day, I was brought to a point where I genuinely feared death. As an avid trail-runner living near forest-covered mountains, I had gone out for a run as I often did. But this time was different. Winter had come early in these parts, and I ended up trapped on a steep, perilously narrow mountain path, unevenly paved with ice; I was terrified of slipping and falling down the very steep slopes, with no one to hear any shouts for help, and was on my hands and knees, afraid to even stand, lest I lose my footing. And so, I came to forced understanding of two things. First, that if I were to slip and meet my end at that very moment, to actually die, I would not be going to heaven. Second, as a runner, running and running all these years, it really hit me—for the very first time—that all the running I was doing was nothing but a physical manifestation of my spiritual running away from God. Boom. It hit me like a train. And despite my resistance, that's when I broke. The façade, the false personas, the total self-deception—everything that I had done and was doing to suppress my conscience—just shattered. On that mountain trail, cold and alone, daylight waning, I fell to my knees and cried out to God for the first time in years. I made the plea I had so often heard in movies (and could scarcely believe that I was making it) and promised Him that I would change my life if He would only get me home alive. He did. And boy, what an awkward bus ride home that was. After walking through the front door of my house, with that heavy feeling in my chest just pounding away and slowly going up my throat, I could barely say hello to my mother as I rushed up the stairs to my bedroom, shut the door, and wept.
This was the very beginning of repentance for me.
Here's the point: I was not worthy of rescue, and it was only when I accepted this that I was able to be rescued. I had no right to make it back home that day. None. I fully realized at that hour, that if I were to fall to my death, that would have been what I was worthy of—and it was all my doing. I chose to run, I chose to climb that mountain, I chose to ignore the kind old man coming down at the start of my ascent who warned me of the dangerous conditions, I chose to push myself, aware of the possible risks. Everything that led up to that moment, I chose to do! In a physical and literal sense, yes, but in a spiritual sense too. It was I who turned my face away, I who, like Adam, hid myself in the garden. Yet knowing all these things, our Lord and great God, the King and our Creator, the very Maker of my very soul—He still chose to save me.
I don't know what it would take for you to, say, go to some rat-infested grocery store and select the most rotten, stinking, maggot-ridden portion of meat from the deli to take back home and prepare for your dinner. Or for you—with your own hands—to clean the filthy, feces-smeared floors and walls of the most neglected public washroom in your city. Forgive me these foul images, but that's just what the Lord did for me. Why? Because I asked. That's it. As I lay at the foot of my bed, crying heartfelt tears for the first time in my life, I understood in a way that I never had before that He not only accepted, but chose that which was infested and vile, repulsive and distasteful. And that's when I felt, from the deepest part of my being, that this God.. this God, is worth everything.
Our world likes to think itself wise and progressive when it tells us that love is "accepting" of "imperfections". In reality, it knows little of true love, and even less of true imperfection. When I began to understand that our God—the One I'd grown up learning about in Sunday school and innocently prayed to as a child before sleep; the One Who parted the mighty Red Sea and spoke stars into being; the One Whose holy Name is thrown around in our day as a cuss word, and Whose very existence is either thought of as a mere joke, or treated with contempt—that God, that very God, is the only One in this world Who truly knows me, loves me, and cares for my soul. I saw with renewed eyes that the distance between His perfection and my imperfection was infinite; but only a love so pure, so unconditional and so correspondingly infinite could see my impurity and choose it for Himself.
I've ended up writing you an essay, forgive me. But I'm trying to get something across that can't easily be done so with words. I was only able to return to God our Father and His ever-open arms as the sinner and prodigal that I am once I realized my utter disgrace, hopelessness and soul-crushing loneliness without Him in my life, in the mire of my sins, as swine with swine for company. Sin, as I learned, is anything that leads me away from only Lover of my soul. And I mean "only" in the most true, most sincere, most serious way possible. I realized that day that no single person in my life and in this world—parents and family included—can or will ever love me the way Christ loves me. As the One Who literally made me, He knows me better than I know myself, which means He sees me fully—every evil thought, word and deed from every of my life—and still He loves me!
I've trampled, sprayed and squashed many bugs in my lifetime. Mosquitoes in particular get no love from me. Though being sizably larger and able to flee, I would rather use my bodily superiority to my advantage and destroy those insects which dare to offend me. But though He is infinitely greater and incomparably more superior than I, a sinner and pestilent germ; though I dare to shamelessly offend Him time and time again; yet His heart is ever-filled with great mercy for me! How deep the love of Christ must be, that when I speak as the thief I am, to my God and my Saviour, hanging on the cross next to me—crucified by His creatures, and bloodied & bruised under the weight of my sin—in that very moment, at the point of annihilation, as I cry out to Him to remember me in His kingdom; at that very moment, my God and my King turns His holy eyes to me, and upon hearing my plea for mercy, and seeing in my eyes the entirety of my sinful life and every wicked deed as the All-Seeing One, Who knew me before the ages; His holy face to my darkened face, sharing in the same human sufferings, in the very same misery of man, wanting me to see all that He would endure for my sake—that is when He responds and says, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise." At that very instant, as soon as those precious words left His holy lips—after the cry for mercy left mine—I was made clean.
To see Him make that choice, for Him to work my salvation and do what I could never do; to not only cleanse me by the sheer power of His holy will, but to grant me that which I neither earned nor deserved: the inheritance which I took for granted in my youth, and wasted away in sin and wickedness; to make me worthy of that most precious gift of eternal life, which I cast aside so long ago, in pursuit of my lusts and evil desires; to see me at my lowest point, and at that moment to make me worthy of the highest honour—that's how He showed me the depth of His love for wretched man; and deep it truly is!
Holy Scripture says, “There is none like God... who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty …The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Friend, this is the truth. It took me far too long to fully realize it, but there truly is none like Him. Nothing in this created world could even hope to ever compare to the One Who created it. And the comprehension of this truth, that He is truly good—when He has every right to be anything but good, yet is actually so good that He cannot be anything but good—changes absolutely everything by making us want to spiritually struggle, to actively desire it—not just for our sakes, but for His sake; out of love—the most powerful motivation. It's the very least we can do, once it strikes the conscience and stirs the heart from its sleep, for the One Who loved us in such indescribable goodness, Who is no mere man, but the one true God and King of the Universe Himself, who deigned to take on our corruptible human flesh, not to simply tell us, but to show us His love for us—the very work of His hands—by suffering with us in our trials and temptations, and going so far as to die that same wretched death that condemns men in their sins. But glory be to God; the most holy Resurrection of our Lord Christ confirmed without doubt the destruction of that death, feared by all men since the days of Adam, and proved His power not only as Lord, but as God (cf. Jn 20:28). And all this He did not only as God, but also as man—as our Brother—so that as we struggle and constantly make the effort to live a repentant, righteous life—to immediately get back up as soon as we notice our fall, without giving in to despondency—we would be made worthy of not only calling Christ our true Brother, but of looking to His Father, to call Him our own, that, as taught, we may say, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." How marvelous the great mysteries of divine love and grace! He who destroyed death is not only able, but willing to destroy the death in us. So let's give thanks to God for His goodness to us!
Perhaps one can sum up the entirety of the purpose of life in this way: to be good, and do good. But to be good and to do good is to know God, and to love Him. For such is the only true Good in this world: our God, and none other.
Apologies again for the long spiel. Two last things that I should mention: genuine and sorrowful repentance does not make us "good" or "better" overnight, and it certainly does not make life easier for us as Christians; in fact, it's almost the opposite—the worst, most deplorable sin I've ever committed happened after my return to God. When the devil sees you on your knees, not in despair (as he would have it) but rather in humility before the Lord your God... well, go ahead and paint a target on your back while you’re at it. Also, forgiveness of sins does not negate every consequence of sin. Don't forget that although Christ forgave and purified him on the cross, the penitent thief was still left there to hang, and even had to endure the breaking of his legs before he finally died. Yes, truly, the struggle of the Christian life is real. But the important thing is to always turn to God whenever you’ve sinned—no matter how depraved your deed; the very thought of repentance in your mind is a sign and miracle from Heaven, and "the very fact that a sinner still lives is a pledge that God will accept whoever desires to return to Him."
Anyways, I do hope that you (or anyone else, for that matter) are at least encouraged by something either I or someone else has written here, and that my paltry words make some sort of sense! I'll leave you with a relevant quote which is always a helpful reminder for me, and which may prove useful to you, as well as a beautiful and relevant hymn from my Orthodox tradition, which speaks of our Lord's power and will to raise those who are dead to life:
"What David calls 'the gates of hell, the pangs' and the 'shadow of death,' he (St. Paul, II Cor. 1:8-10) expresses by saying, 'We endured peril pregnant with certain death' …And why did He (God) permit peril so great as to take away our hope and cause us to despair? 'That we should not trust in ourselves,' he says, 'but in God' …And yet God does not say that He permitted them for this, but for another reason …That His strength might be displayed the more, 'For,' he says, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness'... Whereas the Resurrection (of our souls and bodies) was a thing of the future, he shows that it happens every day: for when God raises a man again who is in despair and has been brought to the very gates of Hades, He shows no other thing than the resurrection, snatching out of the very jaws of death the one who had fallen into them. From this, in the case of those despaired of and them restored either out of grievous sickness or insupportable trials, it is a normal way of speaking to say, We have seen the resurrection of the dead in his case …"
- St. John Chrysostom, Homily II on II Corinthians
To Thee, O Lord of creation,
We kneel down in reverence profound,
For all we who are dead in sin,
In Thee, O Jesus, are made alive!
Amen.
We kneel down in reverence profound,
For all we who are dead in sin,
In Thee, O Jesus, are made alive!
Amen.
TLDR: Don't give up the good fight, brother, at any cost. The prize is far too valuable to pass from this life with an unrepentant heart. Everything in this world is a lie. Anything but the truth is but filthy rags. Don't touch or draw near to anything that causes you to forget the ineffable love our Creator has for His creatures. And never forget that Christ our God knows well our miserable condition, and can never turn away those who seek after Him with all their heart, soul, strength and mind.
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