Your wrath has swept over me. Your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me altogether. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. (Verses 16-18)
Why so downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall praise Him again...Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All Your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is within me, a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42
Wednesday night was a reminder to me of the great grace of God to heal our wounds--to help us through the pain of life back into light. I sat beside a young sophomore I'd met before as I listened with great joy to our daughter in Christ give her story of God's faithfulness to her at a late evening chapel on the campus of Biola University. I'd met the young man to my left at our home a month or so before. Standing across from me as we assembled pizzas and munched veggies, he told me the story of his pain. Only last year his father was taken suddenly from the family, leaving them in grief and confusion. The young man thought he hadn't been the son he'd like to have been, had some regrets about that, but the pain of loss had sent him into a depression he then brought along with him to school in the fall.
It wasn't until we talked on Wednesday night that I got the story of his healing. We had more time to speak with each other and I have to say I was so proud of the way this young man has weathered his storm, head against the wind, rain beating his face, as he gutted it out with God. It wasn't long into the first semester of school this year that his depression turned to anger. When before he'd awakened every day feeling only enough energy to make it out of bed and through his routine, now he was getting up ready for a fight. We, as Christians, often feel like it's sinning to tell God how it is with us. So for a while, the young student held it in. Didn't deal. Only stomped his way past the anger. But deep calls to deep. Heavenly Father to hurting kid. Come let us reason together.
"All right. All right! You took my dad away!" Poured out like vomit. The ugly accusation that was the conviction of his soul wreaking havoc on his faith. The great ball of hate the circumstances had planted into the young man's heart had grown into a palpable, throbbing entity he felt he could reach into himself and extract. It needed unwinding, like a ball of knitting yarn. "I hate what You did, God!"
I know that pain. God allowing the bursting of his child's heart. Tell me more. I'm listening.
And there was more. Lots more. For days my young friend reasoned with God. The beautiful part of this story, as I listened to it while staring into his bright brown eyes, was the peace the young man has come to now. After the pus of his sore soul poured out before the Father Who will never leave him or forsake him, God could begin to heal the hurt. Looking for an honest heart, the Father found one in my friend. Loves him and holds him, for deep calls to deep.
Our daughter in Christ was so amazing in her testimony of God's process of healing her profound hurts. As part of her staff, she saw the young man's anguish and gave him a hand in walking out his emotions. Because when we know from experience the power of honesty with God, when we've been through the grinding mill of heartache and confusion, and come out in love with Jesus, we cannot help but comfort the afflicted. The love of Jesus will take us over the waves, finally calming the turmoil, fulfilling hope again.
We stood and sang together, all of us, "He loves me, Oh, how He loves me" with our hands raised and our hearts bursting. This time with joy instead of the infection of life's crushing diseases. Unable on our own to produce such adoration. But all three of us, our precious spiritual child, the young man and I, know what it's like to feel assaulted and destroyed by the world, those we love taken from us, left angry and hopeless. We are rescued from the flood, pulled out of the overwhelming waves, no longer dripping the residue of the world but becoming rooted and grounded in the soil of His marvelous love. The greater the struggle Jesus brings us through, the greater is our love for Him and our understanding of His steadfast commitment to bind us to Himself by grace. "Oh, how we love Him."
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3
Why so downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall praise Him again...Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All Your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is within me, a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42
Wednesday night was a reminder to me of the great grace of God to heal our wounds--to help us through the pain of life back into light. I sat beside a young sophomore I'd met before as I listened with great joy to our daughter in Christ give her story of God's faithfulness to her at a late evening chapel on the campus of Biola University. I'd met the young man to my left at our home a month or so before. Standing across from me as we assembled pizzas and munched veggies, he told me the story of his pain. Only last year his father was taken suddenly from the family, leaving them in grief and confusion. The young man thought he hadn't been the son he'd like to have been, had some regrets about that, but the pain of loss had sent him into a depression he then brought along with him to school in the fall.
It wasn't until we talked on Wednesday night that I got the story of his healing. We had more time to speak with each other and I have to say I was so proud of the way this young man has weathered his storm, head against the wind, rain beating his face, as he gutted it out with God. It wasn't long into the first semester of school this year that his depression turned to anger. When before he'd awakened every day feeling only enough energy to make it out of bed and through his routine, now he was getting up ready for a fight. We, as Christians, often feel like it's sinning to tell God how it is with us. So for a while, the young student held it in. Didn't deal. Only stomped his way past the anger. But deep calls to deep. Heavenly Father to hurting kid. Come let us reason together.
"All right. All right! You took my dad away!" Poured out like vomit. The ugly accusation that was the conviction of his soul wreaking havoc on his faith. The great ball of hate the circumstances had planted into the young man's heart had grown into a palpable, throbbing entity he felt he could reach into himself and extract. It needed unwinding, like a ball of knitting yarn. "I hate what You did, God!"
I know that pain. God allowing the bursting of his child's heart. Tell me more. I'm listening.
And there was more. Lots more. For days my young friend reasoned with God. The beautiful part of this story, as I listened to it while staring into his bright brown eyes, was the peace the young man has come to now. After the pus of his sore soul poured out before the Father Who will never leave him or forsake him, God could begin to heal the hurt. Looking for an honest heart, the Father found one in my friend. Loves him and holds him, for deep calls to deep.
Our daughter in Christ was so amazing in her testimony of God's process of healing her profound hurts. As part of her staff, she saw the young man's anguish and gave him a hand in walking out his emotions. Because when we know from experience the power of honesty with God, when we've been through the grinding mill of heartache and confusion, and come out in love with Jesus, we cannot help but comfort the afflicted. The love of Jesus will take us over the waves, finally calming the turmoil, fulfilling hope again.
We stood and sang together, all of us, "He loves me, Oh, how He loves me" with our hands raised and our hearts bursting. This time with joy instead of the infection of life's crushing diseases. Unable on our own to produce such adoration. But all three of us, our precious spiritual child, the young man and I, know what it's like to feel assaulted and destroyed by the world, those we love taken from us, left angry and hopeless. We are rescued from the flood, pulled out of the overwhelming waves, no longer dripping the residue of the world but becoming rooted and grounded in the soil of His marvelous love. The greater the struggle Jesus brings us through, the greater is our love for Him and our understanding of His steadfast commitment to bind us to Himself by grace. "Oh, how we love Him."
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3
No comments:
Post a Comment