The worst things in my life have paved way for the best things. In all my despair, in which at one point I was ready to kill myself, I have grasped Christ through all my fear and unbelief.
It was never in myself, the answer. It wasn't about how low I was or how high I could get. I could never perform. I could never "be good". All I knew was how to mess up everything and run into the same walls until my figurative head was bleeding out.
Does anyone know the feeling of waking up everyday to hopelessness? No more dreams and no more hopes. Zero self esteem and a mental paralysis. All I see are my habitual sins that I confess to God, but go back and do them again.
Yes. Absolute depression, feeling so broken that no love could ever reach me, and if it did, it wouldn't want anything to do with me. Everything in my surroundings seemed to rot with me. Years and years and years of it. I'm still picking up the pieces and trying to clean it. When I tried to "feel" God, most of the time I got only condemnation, and I saw my sins as something great, as if they could topple down the cross. All of this is a lie. It doesn't feel like a lie, it feels like the truth. We're so beaten by our experience and our feelings that the dark pillow pressing against our face seems like the only reality. Everything good, hopeful and wholesome seems like it's from another world. It seems like people living that life are in the Matrix or something, like they're clueless about real darkness, or that they're "better" and as such they get to love and to hope.
I respond to fear. It is what I do, instinctively. I've had anxiety and intense fear for most of my life. It becomes a problem when I obey that fear when it's all swollen up and beating me down, when I say to it in my heart: "you are right". But it's not right. It's absolutely wrong. It doesn't get to be right.
When I think of righteous people, I know I'm not one. Where there are demands, I can't fulfill them. Where there is love, I'm like an insane man barricading all my surroundings against it all the while screaming "I NEED IT".
I'm absolutely nothing. In time, I lost all my faith in my own ability. I lost my faith in my faith too. I thought I lost my faith in God, but I was still praying to the one I doubted, to somehow handle all of this, because I can't do any of it. There is honesty in those moments, when we just know that we can't produce what we need and long for the most. It is good to go to God with that kind of honesty. We can't pretend, we can't put up a performance. He knows. And we know too, deep inside. If we're defeated, then we are. But this is where we hope, and we hope for what we can't see. There's something inside us that's crawling to light, crawling to Christ. Something that doesn't want to let go, even if we lie on the ground in defeat. We didn't put that "something" there, we didn't plant it inside ourselves. God did. He pulls us. He knows what He is doing, even if I don't know what I'm doing.
For some of us, dependence in God is molded and strengthened this way. Failure, defeat, emptying of ourselves. It's like we have to crumble into nothing, and then God will start building His own foundation, namely Christ, in and for us. I can't trust myself. I don't even want half the things I want, let alone the things I do. I don't even trust in the strength of my own understanding or faith, I just trust God now. He is the source of love, hope faith and all good things. I'm not, that much is painfully clear. All good things come from Him. It was painful to realize that I can't deserve any of it. We say we don't deserve God's love, but it's a different thing to know it by heart, through experience. We say we are sinners, but it's the most bitter pill to swallow when we really understand it. It's not about some surface-level "I'm not perfect" sentiment, but it's more like a horrifying realization. If I don't fight it, I only get a little bit of that realization, but if I really fight it, then I know that I'm truly tainted by sin, and it has defeated me. It's like the battle of Romans 7:7-25 but only without the last triumphant scream of joy, because I was still focusing on my sin and "the game", not on Christ.
Little by little, fear starts to subside. No matter how long it takes, no matter how conditioned we are to believe otherwise, no matter how often it slaps us around. When we're in the dark, Christ starts to shine against that darkness. The lower we are in the pit, the higher He is. We start to realize bit by bit who He is, what He did for us, why He did it, and that He lives even now, and He is the same as He is ever was. When we're thrown around by fear, our sweet Savior can turn into a tormentor in our hearts. But perfect love finds its ways to get through. It will get through. It is what we want. It is what you want right now. God knows it is what we want. God is what we want. God has a Christ for our want. Christ is not only sufficient, He is more. What we can't do, He can. What we can't be, He is. Where we fall, He lifts.
This is what He does: we will stop staring at ourselves, our sin, our failure, our misery. We will start putting our eyes and hopes in Him. It's not about my dos and don'ts, I could never handle that in the first place, I'm such a miserable bastard. But we learn to take these burdens to Him. It's not wrong to confess and ask for forgiveness, but we can also ask for a trusting heart, perseverance, good faith, and leave our burdens to Him. No matter how many times it takes. In time we will know that this is not just a meaningless ritual, and we start to trust in the fact that He can carry all of these burdens. Not only that, but He WANTS to carry them. How often do we try to convince God to do something good, instead of believing that He is good and wants to do good already because it is His nature? So while at first we are occupied with ourselves, in the end we will be occupied with Him, even enjoying Him, trusting that His love, grace and care is far beyond any father here on earth. And we have some excellent fathers, at least some of us do.
God's love is not like we treat love. Here on earth, love is often something we trade. I "love" you like this, you "love" me back like that. It's almost a currency. We think it's something we deserve, and also something others should deserve from us. If I don't have it, then I didn't deserve it. If I have it, then I must have done something right, but will it last? God's love passes our understanding, much like His peace. If only we believed it. It's hard to believe, I know. But it's still the one thing we need the most.
I won't bore you with details, but this is where I am now - in contrast to where I was before. I believe God is love. I believe Christ has won all things, and He stands with the Father, presenting Himself a sacrifice on my behalf (yours as well). Father sees His Son, and everyone in His Son - you included - as righteous. Our righteousness isn't in us or what we can do, it's in Christ. His righteousness is for us. And nobody grasps this wonderful Christ as hard as someone who is pummeled and tormented by their sin and despair. I believe He has strengthened my faith, not me. I believe He has enabled me to persevere, not me. I believe all good things that I might do, is not me, it's Him working in and through me. I believe my sin doesn't get to sit on a throne anymore, as if it's something majestic and immovable. My sin is nothing compared to Christ. I don't want to sin, but when I do, I don't get despaired anymore. I get up. Christ is on the throne now, not my sin, and I will leave that battle for Him. He can fight it for me. He can take my filth. His love will take the bad and turn it into something good. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times I have to drag my filth to His cross. He is the Lord, He wants to take it, and He will rule. He has gotten me through suicidal depression, He has gotten me through alcoholism, He has gotten me through the times when I lost my faith. Some habitual sin remains, but He has gotten me great victories and will only do more. I didn't do any of it. I can trust Him better now, and where I still don't trust Him, I will have all the opportunities to pray, as I am, for His will to be done in me how He sees fit, in His good time.
When I read "blessed are the poor in spirit", I know that's me. I'm destitute. But Christ says I'm blessed. So strange. Until it becomes reality. I am blessed, and I did nothing to get it. I only failed, and that "something" refused to let go. Call it the spirit, the mustard seed, or something else, but God refuses to let go.
You are not a lost cause. Christ will not lose you. In time, you will know Him, believe Him, and love Him. It's all about Him. No matter how much we fail, fear, lose. He is better than we can give Him credit for. Perseverance, faint hope, strong hope, actual faith, conviction and trust will follow. Many good fruits, and all of them come from Him, for you to share for your neighbor, and you won't share out of fear or out of hoping to get something out of it, you will share because you want to. And you will not judge your brothers and sisters. This is one of the good things that come for the people who have suffered or who have been beaten up by their sin. They will not judge, and they will encourage. All this stumbling encouragement I'm trying to give to you, I believe is from Him. If I stumble, if I can't say the right things, if I didn't encourage you, then it was my failure, not His. But He will get through. All of the brothers and sisters who encouraged you too, were prompted to do so by the Spirit, according to God's will. He has not given up on you, you see. He will get you, and He will embrace you like the Father of the prodigal son.
Wonderful poem about Christ seeking the lost sheep:
"Where are you going Shepherd?
To find My sheep.
How far will you go?
As far as My sheep.
How far may that be?
To the world's end.
How long will you seek it?
Until I find it.
When you find it,
will it come to you?
No, it will flee from Me.
Where will it go then?
To the rocks and the sand.
When will it stop?
When it can run no more.
What will you do then?
Carry it home.
Said a prayer for you.
God bless you brother. Christ with you. No fear.
