And He Carried Me...

     The week has been long.

     I am tired.

     Energy is a word that has become foreign to me.

     Things have been hectic. I cannot remember the last time I was so busy, consistently busy. The truth is, it seriously affected me. I crashed. I broke down. I lost all self-confidence. I even built up an imaginary wall to separate me from those who are closest to me. I was too scared of hurting them, of becoming the girl I used to be, rather than continuing to grow as the woman I now know I am.

     I like to refer to my past as my "widowhood." It is a time where I was without God, without a protector, and I lived a life of selfish independence, hurting those who loved me, and embracing those who despised me. I abandoned God. And He patiently waited. It was a time of deep depression and loneliness, a time of isolation and discouragement. After the last three weeks I feared that I would fall into that again, that I would once again abandon my loved ones and live in separated widowhood. 

     But I didn't.

     I didn't go back to my old ways, because my past is truly behind me. I didn't do this though. I didn't have the strength to fight against the principalities and powers working to cause me to stumble. I didn't win the battle.

     God did...for me.

     In the past I ignored the gentle nature of God. I didn't see Him as kind. I didn't see Him as love. I chose to see Him as a ruling king and an executer of justice. Today He reminded me of His mercy, which has washed me clean of my past. Today, He became not just my king, but my shepherd.

     My favourite chapter in the Bible is Isaiah 55. My first point of call was to go read it again. It always brings me a degree of comfort. Today, however, I felt a little nudge pushing me back one chapter - Isaiah 54. What God had to say through these words brought healing I forgot existed.

"Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called." - Isaiah 54:4-5 (NRSV)

     God is my Redeemer. I do not have to fear because He has promised to hold me for eternity, to guide me and teach me His ways. He provides for me, protects me, covers me. That doesn't mean I don't get tired because one thing I know for sure is what it is to be without energy to do anything. But it means that God carries me, and in these verses He reminds me that I am never, ever alone.

Purity Hurts

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Psalm 51:10-11

     Right now you will be seeing many "Happy New Year" blog entries with resolutions and encouragement and optimism for the year to come. I suppose in a way this is one of those. I recently heard a pastor say that we all begin a new year by looking backward for wisdom, and forward in hope for our future. There is something exciting about a fresh start with new goals and new aspirations. Many times, if you are a follower of Christ, we use this time to commit to a more diligent effort in reading the Word of God or spending time in prayer, or telling people about our faith. These are all good goals to have. Yet somehow, the vast majority of us reach the middle of the year and look back at the past six months, and then we feel shattered because we started strong, yet we are at that moment perhaps the furthest from God that we feel we have ever been. Can you relate to that hopeless feeling?

     I'm going to throw an idea out there. I believe the reason we end up at this hopeless point is because we started without taking care of our hearts first. It is so easy to make big plans to advance our Faith, yet we often forget to do the simplest thing - and that is to ask God to purify our hearts. 

     How many times have we quoted Psalm 51, and yet our words are empty? How often do we really ask God to cleanse our hearts? To truly make us pure and holy, blameless before Him? I think the big problem is that we know the consequence of asking such a thing. We know that when we ask God to create in us clean hearts, He is faithful to do just that, and that means knocking down our pride, refining us, melting us, shaping us, dredging up all the ugliness of our human disposition and cutting it away. Psalm 51 even addresses this: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice." The cleansing hurts. It crushes us, grinds us down, it lays our pride shamelessly on the ground and we are renewed, our spirits are made right before God. 

     Now I would propose a question. Are you willing to go through that cleansing, that painful but freeing process where God Himself purges our iniquities from within us?

     My prayer this year is that God would purify my heart, and that that would overflow into my daily interactions with people. Once again in Psalm 51 it says: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You." This is not something I can do. It is only by God's grace and might that my heart will be cleansed, and even then He will continue to uphold me and speak through me to those who are unaware of His incredible mercy. Would you join with me, brothers and sisters, and ask our Heavenly Father to purify our hearts, to purge us of our transgressions so that we are not tempted to walk this walk in our own strength? It is only by God's unending power that we can make it through our earthly journey before we meet with Him in our true home.

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin."

Psalm 51:1-2