I wish that I could properly capture all of the thoughts constantly racing through my mind and bind them. Place them on a page, proper and pretty, with all the correct punctuation keeping them in line. Rather than having them untrained, overpowering in their confusion and chaos, I would have them neatly lined up in such a way that I can begin to understand myself. Instead, I try to focus on school work, while in my mind's eye I sit back exhausted at the exertion of trying to focus when my mind races constantly, never taking time to breathe or learn who I am. I want to learn, constantly. I want to learn about the world around me, while trying to comprehend how I fit in, the insignificant person that I am. I want to be found significant by someone else. I want to understand God better and who I am to Him. I want to understand His person and His work. I want to be able to, just once, think about just Systematic Theology instead of Systematic Theology and all of the things weighing down on my heart.
I want to just understand myself, once and for all, understand who I am in Christ and who I am as a sinner and not be confused about all of these feelings swirling inside myself, these doubts that nag and nibble on my resolve, trying to devour myself while I'm not paying attention.
Its not so simple as just understanding myself. My self will always be changing. I will continue to grow and to learn, to be shaped by Christ and to be shaped by knowledge. I think the best understanding I can come to of myself at this moment is that I don't understand. I think I should be okay with that. The most important thing that I think that any human can recognize about themselves is that we are all needy. Every single one of us. There is no autonomy in humanity. This is the most basic state of humanity that I can think of. We need a God who is supreme, who is bigger than ourselves to give us breath, to give us life, a purpose. We need Him to save us from the damnation we chose for ourselves long ago, and choose for ourselves everyday. Everyday I choose to damn myself. Every day I must then choose to let Christ save me.
With this understanding of myself- that I was a sinner on the path to hell, chosen by God before the beginning of time, and bought with a price, already but not yet fully redeemed- and needy of my Lord and Savior in every moment in the fullest sense of the word, I can begin to build on this understanding. Unfortunately, my head and heart disconnect, and I live my life as though my salvation was a momentous occasion when I was young, and not an ongoing process that is essential for everyday. By saying ongoing process I do not deny that Christ's atoning work on the cross over two thousand years ago was a sufficient sacrifice once and for all. I simply mean that I do not let Christ 'save me' everyday. Everyday I fight for myself. I fight for my own desires and my own will. I do not trust that Christ is sufficient in all areas of my life. He saved me from hell, but did he save me from my school bill? Did He save me from lonliness? Did He save me from sickness? This is what I mean when I say "I must then choose to let Christ save me" every day.
Right now, my life has a few common themes, exposed to me recently and over time. Some are redundant, and others are new and refreshing. A new one is the lesson of joy. I am constantly trying to view my thoughts and my concerns in the light of the joy that I am supposed to find in Christ. If I let Christ be enough for me, and stopped struggling against Him-- that is if I stopped seeing my way as best and submitted rather than strive for constant control-- wouldn't I find more joy in Him? And if I found more joy in Him wouldn't it be easier to love Him and let Him have the control He deserves as my Lord? I must lay down my life. I must understand what His salvation truly is. I must submit to His salvation. If I submit to His salvation and understand what He did then I will be moved to love Him for Who He is rather than out of duty. If I love Him for Who He is and understand Who He is, and who I am in Him, then I will find joy in a relationship with a redeemer who voluntarily died for me, which moves me to love unlike any other love, which gives me joy in Him, and He will have joy in me. What a thought.
I recently have been reading a book by Francis Chan entitled "Crazy Love: Overwhelmed By a Relentless God". In it, Chan describes the struggle in loving God. He says:
"It confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn't it be easy to love a God so wonderful? When we love God because we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is... We are programmed to focus on what we don't have, bombarded multiple times throughout the day with what we need to buy that will make us feel happier, sexier, or more at peace. This dissatisfaction transfers over to our thinking about God. We forget that we already have everything we need in Him. Because we don't often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshipped and loved. We are to fear Him. A.W Tozer writes,
'What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing
about us.... Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts
of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself,
and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say
or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.'"
All of this stirs a thought process in my heart that I pray leads to an awakening in my soul to who God is. A person can only know Who He is by reading what He has to say about Himself. We can know of God and certain attributes of God through His general revelation, but to know God, to have high thoughts about Him, we cannot be content to hear about Him, but we must strive to know Him. And to know Him and His Son begets the process I described above. I am beginning to understand more of who I am, but it really doesn't come down to knowing who I am. Knowing who I am gives myself a certain assurance. Knowing who God is gives life.
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