A TESTIMONY

At this late date in my life I have a confession.  To all you who are super saints and figured this out long ago, I apologize.  For those of you who might daily wrestle with what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and how to actually live at that level, maybe you will relate.  Here is the confession: Living in Jesus so that He actually holds authority in my life is a tricky business for me.  Actually being the person Jesus is calling me to be is a great mystery to this heart of mine. Getting out of the way so that Jesus can be the Way is easier for me to talk about than to do.

John the Baptist said of Jesus and himself, "He must increase; I must decrease." Paul wrote, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." A thousand times I have confessed that the "want to" is there.  I just have a weakness in knowing how to get it from "want to" to really doing it.

The apostle Paul said, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," and, again, I say the "want to" is there but the doing it falls short.  Often I have prayed,

God help me.  How shall I actually live the life to which you have called me?  How do I let the Holy Spirit help me to set apart Christ as Lord in me?  How do I take what it means to be me and let "me" go to God?  What does it mean and how do I do it, take up my cross and follow Jesus to wherever it means to follow Him?

When Paul was wrestling with his own sin, brokenness, and humanity he said, "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"  Then he said, 'Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The truth is that I have decided to follow Jesus because of His extended grace and mercy to me, and I have absolutely no desire to turn back, turn away, or let go of the awesome thing God is doing in my life.  However, I refuse to admit to something that might make me appear to be more than I am.  To that end I confess my weakness and admit to my humanity.  I don't know how to pray except to say, "God, be God in me."  Your will be in me as it is in heaven."  This is all I know to pray, "Jesus be the Lord of all matters that pertain to me."

A wonderful thing about following Jesus is that there is never a need to beat up on your self.   In Jesus we see that God is not a "beating up" God. Rather, He is the God who, in great compassion and tenderness calls out to us, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give your rest" (Matt. 11:28).  A thousand times or more God has reached out into my life with these powerful and almost irresistible words, and every time I have found that God is my Advocate not my opponent. 

Thomas Merton has a wonderful prayer for folks like me, who are probably harder on ourselves than God is 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” -- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

 

"I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you."  Is that the kind of God you serve?  He is not a measuring up God.  He is the God of all grace who captivates our imagination when He demonstrates His love for us by dying for us "while we were yet sinners" (Romans 5:8). What kind of God would do that?  In our world the gods don't die for people, people die for the gods.  That's just how it works.  Yet, in Jesus we see a way of being that calls the old order into question and manifests in the life of the folks, immeasurable grace and mercy.

I may not be perfect but in a grace I don't understand I am saved.  I am being redeemed.  I am in the midst of a new life created in the infinite imagination of God who raised Jesus from the dead and who dares give life to this old mortal body of mine.  Who would have thought it?

At this late date in my life I have another confession – JESUS IS LORD.