Any New Year's resolutioners out there?
I'm not so much of one. But the start of a New Year does traditionally mean the start of a new diet. The end of a stuff-yourself-sick-with-goodies season, snug clothes, and a long enough break from the previous diet to make me forget how miserable dieting is...these all work together to create my perfect dieting environment.
Now I have another challenge to stare at. I'm not sure yet if I want to take it on. Because I'm pretty sure I would like it even less than food deprivation.
But the results are even better than fitting perfectly into the skinny jeans I haven't been able to wear for years.
Am I willing to step into this new year and embrace pain?
I want to live and experience a faith that is real. Genuine. Pure. When the day comes that I stand before Jesus, I want Him to welcome me into His arms. When the years of my life are put through the final fire of testing, I want to have more left standing than burned up. I want to hear Him say, Well done, my child.
It's easy to present to the world a faith that looks real. And I am afraid I have spent too much time doing this. It's easy to mimic the appearance of deep faith. Observe the believers around, take a little Bible reading here, impersonate an impressive prayer there, and display passionate worship on the side. Reuse spiritual words, learn how to appear wise. It all looks good...even feels good.
But true faith is not about feeling good.
In fact, I've come to believe it's quite the opposite.
The closer we grow with God, the more it hurts, because the deeper He digs to remove our sin and impurities.
Pain.
It's bittersweet, this pain. Oh, how it hurts to have the deepest places of our hearts prodded in that way. Yet with this pain comes a peace and joy that is beyond explanation. Because this faith that is slowly grown through trials and suffering becomes increasingly more real to remind us of what is yet to come.
Sickness, pain, loss, death...in the midst of them we can rejoice because we know it does not end here. There is something greater beyond our wildest imaginations that awaits us on the other side of the valley.
We all want to reach the other side. But the only way to get there is to first pass through the middle.
The low, dark, lonely, painful, beautiful middle.
1 comment:
Oh ... my.
Wow. You see the depths of things, my friend. This was painful, at times, to read, but was much needed in this heart. I am so quick to think that faith can make things "feel" better.
This, right here, cuts to the core: "The closer we grow with God, the more it hurts, because the deeper He digs to remove our sin and impurities."
You are wise, so wise.
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