Freedom

Wow, I haven't posted to this in a while. I had a momentous evening so I think it's time to start blogging again. ;-)

I've really been struggling in my walk with God in several areas, but an area that He's been continually drawing attention to is my belief/view that I have to somehow work to attain things from Him, whether it's Him doing something in my life or simply His favor or grace. I realized my walk with Him is very performance-based in my mind, and consequently (though I didn't realize this until recently) I have felt very disconnected from Him. Ironically, nothing I've been doing has been helping me to feel connected to Him. Reading the Word, talking about Him more, worshiping, going to church, Bible Study...all have felt distant from Him, like going through the motions. This morning, this Scripture popped into my head as I was getting ready for work: "They mention me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." That's a paraphrase from my brain of the actual verse, but you get the idea. It was convicting. I felt like that was me, and my solution was to just try harder. To make myself connect with Him. Well, it doesn't work. I knew that much by this point. Something was wrong, and I could not figure out what it was. But it has really been bothering me, so much so that I have been feeling depressed and lonely, wanting to "fix" this and not knowing how...being yet unsatisfied by everything else.

Then I got to spend time with Amanda. She is my best friend, and it was a blessing to be able to meet up tonight! It worked out perfectly, without any prior planning on either of our parts. I had to go to Anaheim to monitor a visit that was scheduled for 3:30 - 7:30 PM, and I was planning to go home directly after. However, because the mother we were waiting for did not show, the visit was canceled and I found myself heading back toward home relatively early. I called Amanda to see what she was doing, and she was just heading back to Irvine from Southcoast Plaza, and said she was able to hang out! So we met at Peet's Coffee (my favorite place) and were able to catch up. In talking about these struggles I was having, particularly about connecting with God, I described my realization that my view of Him was that I had to do something to earn things, to make Him happy, or to remove His anger or frustation with me. In the questions she asked me, I realized that this is very much how I acted as a child with my own father. My actions (or lack thereof) often had a very direct effect on his mood and how he would treat me and respond to me. I have lived for months at a time thinking that God doesn't think I've quite reached the mark He's set for me, or that I could always be doing more of this, more of that, or not doing this at all because it's not for the Kingdom. Okay, actually, I think this has happened for years, because many of these beliefs have been challenged during our Pure Life Bible studies as we've been going through Romans, and realizing exactly what the Lord has done for us - how He knew we wouldn't be able to do anything to save ourselves and so He provided His Son to die for our sins. He atoned for every one of them, both past and future, because He knew we never could. I have always believed that and understood that, but I didn't understand the implication of that deed long-term. That it not only meant I can't earn my salvation, but I can't earn anything from Him. Not His love, His grace, His favor, His compassion, His embrace, His watchfulness of me, His comfort, His goodness, His mercy, His actions. I realized that I have been believing (and acting) as though His actions depend on mine. That was sobering and humbling at the same time. It's funny how you don't realize what you actually believe until you sit down and think it through. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that my beliefs about God had started with my dad, but had been reinforced by at least one other very close, significant relationship in my life (also with a male).

But He comes first. He already accomplished. In fact, I realized, He is outside of time, and in reality (though it's kind of sci-fi-ish if you think about it) everything that will be has actually already been done. And as I was praying and releasing all of this to Him, I heard Him very clearly say to me: "I'm not waiting for you to do anything. It's all already done." So He's not waiting for me to get to just the right place before He'll give me something I need or even want. He's not hovering over me, waiting for me to mess up, and then withholding good things from me as punishment. He's not waiting to give me things until I do something. If anything, it's a matter of timing, not because I have or have not done something. I am amazed at how freeing this was to me. I felt like the weight of the world lifted off of my shoulders. I think it is what He meant for us to share with Him: a relationship that's free from all of this except for child-like dependence on Him exactly because we cannot do things. And, the security that He's already done everything that needs to be done. Now if I can only go through the rest of my life with this mindset...