Caught in Grace

I feel caught between two worlds. I am so easily consumed by the ways of this world. Whether it's overindulgence or vain conceit, my flesh desires to be a part of this world. I get caught up in "pretty" things and get caught up in trying to look a certain way. Media tells me that men desire a particular kind of woman. Media tells me that I should want to out-do other women in what I look like, how I talk, what job I have, who my friends are, etc. Media, especially America tells me that I should put myself first and be a person who should flourish in everything regardless of who it brings down. Sometimes, I want to be that person and I forget that I am not of this world, but I am a citizen of heaven.

I feel like I'm on a long road trip with Jesus. I'm the driver and He's the navigator. And every time I want to be a part of this world, I stop the car, ask him to get out and leave him on the side of the road. I drive off but realize (after I've gone too far) that I need Him because He's the one guiding the trip. Then I have to turn the car around after I have gone miles and miles in the wrong direction. That leaves me on my own, trying to retrace where I turned and which exits I took in order to go back and pick Jesus up.

But all too often, I forget a verse in which I must remind myself of everyday. Multiple times a day. In Matthew 28, Jesus says "And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." I think I can get rid of Jesus when I want to. But I can't. He's there when I don't want Him to be. That is both a comfort and an incredibly terrifying thought. Jesus always being with me reminds me that He loves me when I don't love Him. But it also reminds me that when I sin...He's there. He sits next to me when I deny Him and sugarcoat the Gospel because I'm afraid. He sits next to me when I lie. He's watching and listening when I choose to sin. He cries when I choose to sin even when I clearly hear the Holy Spirit telling me to choose God. Why am I afraid to talk about the One who breathed me into life and controls my every breath? He holds me when no one's embrace suffices. He helps me up when I'm exhausted. He loves me. He's in love with me. He wants to know me. I spend so much time trying to say or do the right things to catch the attention of mankind that I forget that the perfect man, Jesus, wants to be with me. I am in a relationship with Him. And even when I hurt Him by choosing emptiness before His abundant love, He does everything in His power to tell me that He still loves me.

I know I'm going to fail. I have already failed today more times than I can count. But I serve a God who does not fail. I serve a God who doesn't know how to fail. Isaiah 30 talks about a nation that carries out their own plans without consulting God; a nation that has rejected God and relied on themselves and on deceit; a nation that refuses to change even when they know they are this way. I think most of me feels this way right now. I say "most of me" because I don't really know why I keep going back and forth between feeling absolutely giddy because of God's love for me and feeling apathetic and numb to who God is and what Jesus has done for me.

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you....Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying 'This is the way, walk in it'" --Isaiah 30:18-19, 21)

This passage reminds me that God guides me and shows me where to walk; He shows me that even when I reject Him, he longs to give me grace. It seems that regardless of how I feel about God, he will always feel the same way about me. A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at Primetime (the weekly meeting of Student Impact) and talked about the movie 127 hours, which is a movie about a guy whose arm gets stuck between a wall and a boulder. The only way for him to get out and be free is to cut off his own arm. I used it as an illustration of the ways that God often puts us through hard and painful things in order to heal us and free us. That is what I am experiencing right now. I am walking through a fire right now and it's painful. But it hurts in the most beautiful way. God is burning away the impurities of my heart, soul and mind. He is refining my faith and reminding me that even when I fall and choose to sin. God continues to give me grace when I sin and ask for forgiveness. But he gives me grace when I need strength to have a hard conversation and when I need a reminder that I can get through the pain that I feel. It is my task, because of his grace, to CHOOSE to love him and turn away from what this world tells me to do, say, look like, etc.

I don't know about you, but that is a kind of grace and love that moves my heart into disarray (in the best way). I feel caught in God's grace. I feel like I was walking down the street and all of a sudden it just hit me and now I can't get out of it. I've said this before, but everything about God is contradictory to this world. I am both captured and set free by God's grace. Jesus' blood has washed me clean. I am alive because of death. I need to die to myself in order to live. I don't get it. And that's the beauty of grace. Grace is incomprehensible. And it's something that God freely extends because he loves me.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus." --Romans 3:23-24