Seeking

This might end up kind of long, but I need to lay out my thoughts somewhere. In an earlier post, I talked about "Bob," the imaginary person who torments me with confusion over what to do and when. Well, Bob has been back in such a serious way that I don't feel I should even call him Bob anymore...The past day or so, the distress has been a lot over praying, especially praying for other people. It's so difficult for me to intercede, and yet its such an obviously necessary thing for a Christian to do. I know don't do it enough, but if prayer is so important, is there ever an "enough?" I read something about Martin Luther praying for three hours one day...and I just think, even praying that much in a fervent way is an unreachable goal to me, and even then, there would always be more to pray for...sooo...it feels hopeless. I feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of things a Christian is "supposed to do," and feel totally incompetant to be a Christian, which grieves me because I don't want to be separated from God. I've tasted how wonderful He is, and I hate the thought of losing Him, but I know I can never measure up.

So...I've been asking desperate questions and looking for answers- looking for answers in God's word as a wise friend counselled me to do a few days ago. Somehow I just felt like reading the King James Version (which I usually don't do) and now I know God was leading me to it, because there were some amazing things in the study section (its a study Bible, and I confess, I haven't used a Study Bible at all in my 18 years. I always thought I'd get off track and get more into the study than the Bible.) So when I type in verses, some will be in KJV while some will be in my "home version," the NIV.

Today I desperately needed some help, so first I just flipped open to Psalms, where I found I could so agree with David!

"I am feeble and very broken; I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and my groaning is not hidden from Thee..." Ps. 38: 8-9

"Hold not Thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were..." Ps. 39:12

"Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head, therefore, my heart faileth me." Ps. 40:12

My words to God were something like this: "God, I am broken, I need You...don't keep peace when You see me crying, please do something!...I'm a stranger with You; I feel like I don't even know You. No one else can help me, I know it has to be You...and yet, I can't measure up to what you tell me to do. I know that You've saved me by Your sacrifice and grace, but now that I'm saved I don't have the spiritual strength to keep Your commands...so it seems that I'm just going to keep sinning and separating myself from You every moment. I want to draw near...I want to say "ok, God, I'll just obey you." It's worth it to me to sit silently and try to pray for three hours if I need to try that, if I can just please You and get to come near You" But I....I can't. I just can't.

So, I realized, all over again, just like it came to me a few nights ago in another time of searching, that my deepest need is for salvation. To be able to please God. He is so big and I want Him so much, but He's just too perfect and I'm too weak. I know that He's saved me for eternal life, and I've been reading all these verses about His love...but I have always wrestled with the beautiful idea of having rest and peace and constant communion with Him here on earth. Of knowing that He's pleased with me.

It's so cool to me that that need for salvation is what David is agonizing over in the Psalms, here where I "flipped open to"!

"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears you have pierced, (for service, like in the New Testament when they pierced the ears of bond servants), burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require...I desire to do Your will, Oh my God; Your law is within my heart." Ps. 40:6,7 NIV

In verse 11 it says "Withhold not Thy tender mercies from me, Oh Lord..."

That's what I need...it's all I can plead from God. Please, have mercy on me.

So I found myself searching for tender mercies...and found them in Luke 1...(its much simpler in the NIV, although it sounds beautiful from the KJV)

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
Because He has come and has redeemed His people.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David...
to rescue us from the hands of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve Him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days...

And you, my child, [John the Baptist], will be called prophet of the Most High;
For you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way before Him,
To give His people knowledge of salvation
Though the forgiveness of their sins,
Because of the tender mercies of our God,
By which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
To shine on those living in darkness
And in the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the path of peace."
(most of Luke 1:68-79), NIV, my emphasis

To serve You without fear, God- that's what I want!

So then, I looked up salvation in the study Bible notes and found that,

"The Hebrew and Greek words for "salvation" imply the ideas of deliverance, safety, preservation, healing, and soundness." The study notes also said that salvation is in three tenses:

1) "The Christian has been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin and is safe."

2) "The Christian is being saved from the habit and dominion of sin."

3) "And the Christian will be saved at the Lord's return, from all the bodily infirmities that are the result of sin and God's curse upon the sinful world and brought into entire conformity with Christ."

"Salvation is by grace through faith, is a free gift and wholly without works. The divine order is: first salvation, then works."

Whoa!!! So...my works don't affect my salvation? They don't affect the safety, healing, and protection of Christ right now? Apparently not.

In another study note I read..."For salvation, faith is personal trust, apart from meritorious work..." Personal trust. Personal trust in a personal God, whom I've known was personal and whom I've longed to know intimately, but couldn't see how childish trust could be enough. So yes, I continued, now excited, on my treasure hunt, trying to figure out what works really are. Philippians 2:12-13 says:

"Wherefore, my beloved...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you, to do of His good pleasure."

Oh no! Not working again...not figuring out my own salvation...once again it's a feeling of abandonment as I realize that I must be a friend of God or I have no real friendship in all the world- and yet it looks as if God has left me to figure it out for myself, like a father buying his five year old a bike and leaving him to put it together on his own on Christmas morning...But it's not this way. God is so mysterious to me...His ways are so different...His works are so different!

"What must we do to do the work God requires? Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: To believe in the One He has sent." John 6:28-29

"...to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." Rom. 4:5

"There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he hath also ceased from his own works, as God did from His. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest..." Heb. 4:9-11a

Working to rest...it sounds like an oxymoron, but it actually makes so much sense to me. It's definitely a big job to rest in God and give up the tendency to try to rescue myself...its a big work, but its not an impossible one because it doesn't require my strength to climb higher- only my willingness to let go.

So, again with David I will say:

"Let all those who seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee; let such as love Thy salvation say continually, 'The Lord be magnified!" Ps. 40:16