When I left I was fighting back tears, praying quietly in my heart, and the sweetest lady approached my girls and I as we were walking out the door - saying how glad she was that we were there and asking if we needed help to our car. I KNOW that was God's kindness - His love and attention - right there in front of me. Letting me know He sees, He knows, and that He cares.
Immediately when I got home, I called my mom to ask her why this was so hard. Why am I circling the same issues over and over and over again? Why are our days so hard? Why are simple things (like going to a Bible study) so hard for us? Through the course of our conversation I realized how often my mom was encouraging me to stop and pray. Struggling? PRAY! Become aware of your failures and/or blatant sin? PRAY. Confess immediately. Repent. Pray. There He was again. God showing me, answering me - right there. In a somewhat ordinary moment with a somewhat ordinary conversation.
Right after I got off of the phone, I had to go pick my husband from work for lunch, and I relayed my frustration and sadness to him. As I was finishing up and he was getting ready to leave for work, I opened my email to find a blog post from Kari Denker (she is the author of the workbook for Sermon on the Mount - as well as other AWESOME Bible study material) and she posted something that went hand in hand with what I was struggling through in 1st John, so I reached out by email to ask if I could ask her a question about it.
One thing that I REALLY appreciate about Kari (and I do not know her personally, just through her blog and her published material) is that she is always, ALWAYS, willing to answer questions. This time though, she went a step further and sent me an exercise to work through - another kindness of God - right there on display.
As a result of I have spent the last week realizing three things about God.
1) I MISS His presence and His answers. I don't pay careful attention to His work in my life and as a result I often times lose hope and face discouragement.
2) I fail to pray. Regularly. And because of that - I fail to lay ahold of all that God promises us in Christ. And as a result of this, again, I lose hope, face discouragement, and trip over habitual sins.
3) This last one is a bit of an irony. This is what I realized : I am either abiding in faith or I am abiding in fear. But never not one or the other (does that make sense?)
And here is how I realized this :
OK, so I never noticed how often we are encouraged to remain (aka abide) in Christ in 1st John. Whenever I think of the word abide I think of John 15. But here John is again, right here in his letters tucked at the very end of the New Testament, encouraging us to abide in Christ and abide in the love of God.
I began to ask myself - well what exactly does that look like walked out? And I could not, for some reason, think of a single, concrete, practical answer to that question. And from that question I began to ask myself, how do I apply the cross of Christ to my life? Literally what does that look like, ESPECIALLY when I become aware of something that I am supposed to do (and are not doing that) , after I confess that (come into agreement with God's Word), how do I not get stuck in that sticky, icky, yucky spot of "I did (or did not) do __________ (fill in the blank with the sin - intentional or not)" and all of the guilt and shame that comes along with that?
Well, after completing Kari's worksheet, I was very, VERY aware of what abiding is and what it isn't. I realized that I was literally abiding in worry. I thought about it, talked about it, worried about worrying about it. I meditated on it - it literally was my constant companion through the day. Immediately upon realizing this, I realized something else. This is a direct result of not praying. I am talking to myself instead of talking to God. And as this realization began to unfold, Kari talked me through where to go from here, and as I thought about what she shared, two things happened.
Literally the very next week in Bible study our teacher shared a quote from Martyn Lloyd Jones at the beginning of class. And as I thought through that, God showed me what Hebrews 4:16 means.
But to get the full impact of this, I have to tell you the whole story. Because this was DEFINITELY God answering me and thankfully I was paying attention and didn't miss it.
The first thing that happened was our class began (the week after I was really discouraged) and the teacher went back (she did not teach the week before, she was there, and wrote the study, but she wasn't the leader of the discussion the previous week). And as she went back to she addressed this specific verse : 1 John 3 vs 20. "whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things."
And as she dove into what this verse meant for those of us who feel discouraged - she shared this quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones :
“The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’—what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’—instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.”
― Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and CuresShe went on to say that we spend far too much time listening to ourselves instead of preaching to ourselves! And as I thought about what she shared, over the next week I began to understand the verse Hebrews 4:16 in a whole new way. God was showing me that when I become aware of falling short that I am not to feel discouraged - NO - I am to come boldly before His throne BECAUSE that is what the cross accomplished for me. That is how I apply the cross to my life. That is how I cling to Him and let everything else go. And how do I do that? PRAY PRAY PRAY. Commune with God all day long. When things are going ok and when things are not. When I am doing well in my walk and when I am not. And you know what that is? That is abiding in Him!
God is SO so SO awesome! He hears us when we ask. He answers us when He has our hearts prepared. And I am SO SO SO thankful He is so patient.
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