Last night Bill, one of our pastors, quoted Psalm 139:23-24 – a passage I had personally prayed a while back – with devastatingly beautiful answers.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
God rarely answers prayers the way I expect Him to, and almost never the way I want. And yet, He answers them consistently, exactly the way I need.
It was right before one of my solo trips, a prayer that any unexposed darkness in me would be brought to light during my time alone with the Lord. My happily comfortable self thought I’d be reminded of my tendencies for impatience and stubbornness – a shallow assessment of the deep-rooted sin that still lurked in the corners of my heart – the sin that refused to acknowledge that I still saw a part of my identity as defined by my past and others’ perception of me instead of by the words of my Creator.
It was on that solitary sojourn that God revealed to me my ignorance of my own spiritual state. I was mentally stable for the first time in a long time, content in my work, settled in my community, and yet I was inwardly smug about the “peace” I’d attained – proud of the work I’d done to better myself and the boundaries I’d set for myself, considering myself superior to others who struggled much more than I did, instead of attributing glory to the Father who provided all of these good things.
I walked about with my hands in my pockets, taking in the beautiful sights with a sense of satisfaction, all while praying “Search me, Lord, and know my heart.”
A dangerous prayer for someone as self-satisfied as I was. The enemy strikes when you are most vulnerable – when you believe you are all right. And in that moment I was defenseless.
In the aftermath of an extremely bad choice, it’s easy to fall into a downward spiral of guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. Walking back into my carefully-crafted environment of boundaries and rules suddenly felt empty, shallow and hypocritical.
I wanted to hide from God. It was like having a spotlight on the parts of myself that I had refused to acknowledge and there was nothing I could use to cover them up. I felt that I had failed him, that my worth had somehow plummetted at the moment of failure.
And yet His word through the Apostle Paul says:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
(Romans 5:1-2)
Paul continues in verses 6-8:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
It took me a while to process this. I’ve now been a follower of Christ for over twelve years, but I still have to remind myself of this crazy, illogical truth: I still sin against God, and He STILL loves me.
I’ve seen the two errors of many Christian camps that do not have a holistic view of God as perfectly holy and perfectly loving: Everything is cool – you can do whatever you want since Jesus has already paid for it all, or: You cannot be accepted by God unless you clean yourself up first.
Want to know what God is like? There is no better picture than the gruesome, bloody, shameful, horrific cross to which Jesus was nailed. God’s entire wrath in all its fury against a world that refused to turn from evil – poured out completely on the innocent, spotless lamb. For us. For people I love. For people I hate. For ME. I don’t need to clean myself up, Jesus has already done that. I have no right to condemn others, Jesus does not condemn me. To hide in shame because of my sin is to consider myself higher than God Himself who forgave me.
When I laid myself bare before Him and confessed everything to my counselor, Amy, I saw a glimpse of God’s irrational love as she hugged me, prayed for me, and talked me through the process of healing, reconciliation, and growth.
Love isn’t just because of. Love is also IN SPITE OF. God sees all of me.
I am a daughter to two amazing parents. Sister to three crazy sisters. Mother to one spoiled dog. Friend. Acquaintance. Church worker. Creative. Impatient. Condescending. Struggling with depression and anxiety, an addictive personality, and self-destructive tendencies. Prideful. Lustful. Wrathful. Gluttonous. Greedy.
These are all peripheral to my identity. Who am I, really? The Word says that I am Ruby, a sinner redeemed by God. Forgiven.
Fully known. Fully loved.
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”
– Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage
