In This I Rejoice

Coming to Virginia has not made me spiritually invincible. I know you’re not surprised. I’m not either. I knew I was taking my sinful self with me when I left, and so my same sins were bound to rear their ugly heads eventually. But what I didn’t expect was to find some of the same temptations from which I intended to remove myself. Apparently they came with me too. I arrived at this brilliant realization sometime yesterday evening.

I became discouraged. I let my thoughts take over again, and I forsook so quickly the peace which I had come to rest in. I listened to myself and let myself forget the Gospel truths which allowed me to experience the grace and peace of God’s sovereignty. I regret to admit that I didn’t reconcile these doubts with God last night. I went to bed with my mind looking inward and my soul downcast. I neglected to confess my faithlessness and turn to Christ for hope.

I did not feel like reading my Bible this morning. I slept in as long as possible so I could keep putting it off. But when I did finally open my Bible, God was ready and waiting. Check it out:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:3-9).

I’m sorry, come again… God did what for me? I’m having a hard time getting my mind around this passage. There’s so much truth packed into so few words. This is the Gospel, my friends. This is everything I need for life. The impact these words can have on my entire life is immeasurable. What if I had read these words last night in the midst of my despair? I think things perhaps would have turned out a little differently. I think I would have gone to bed rejoicing and praising God for all that He has done for me.

I’m making a commitment to myself to memorize this passage. Psalm 119:11 says “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” If there was ever a passage of Scripture to store up in my heart to keep me from sinning, I think it’s this one from 1 Peter. Next time you see me, ask me to recite it. I pray that I never tire of repeating and hearing these words.

I’m just letting my life be changed by the Gospel, again. I’m just trying to position myself for growth in the mundane moments of life. I’m just trying to let God move through His Spirit as He wills. And praise God… I think it’s working.

Beyond Understanding

At one point during the afternoon today I took a short break from my reading. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and thought about life. I’ve thought about my life a lot over the past few months, and it’s been good since I’ve been up here not to think about it so much. I have a bit of a tendency to overthink and overanalyze things, and to focus on those things which lead me to despair rather than hope. But today was different. Today as I thought, I was not overwhelmed by the mess I have made of things in the past. I was not disheartened by my failures and my shortcomings. There was a new feeling today, and I can only describe it as genuine peace; peace as I have not known in a long time.

Perhaps it is an indication of the power of that moment that I am now unable to find the words to describe adequately the feeling of relief that flooded over my every thought of life. I was seeing not only the present, but the difficult moments of the past and the future, through the filter of God’s sovereignty, and for the first time I think I truly grasped the truth that God has been in control of it all. I was overwhelmed.

These lyrics from Nichole Nordeman’s song “I Am” ran through my mind:

When I am weak, unable to speak,
Still I will call You by name.
“Oh Shepherd, Savior, Pasture-maker,
Hold on to my hand,” and You say “I am.”
When I am weak, unable to speak
Still I will call You by name.
“Creator, Maker, Life-sustainer,
Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer,
Lord and King, Beginning and the End
I am, yes, I am.”

Praise God that as I sang these words to God, I meant them. Today, I called God my Shepherd, my Comforter, and my very Life-sustainer, and I meant it. He has been these things to me, and the result is a rest and peace which my weary soul has so desperately longed for. Today, I heard the voice of God saying to me: “It’s okay. Everything has been okay, and it’s going to be okay. I’ve made it okay through the blood of my Son. I crushed Him for you. I sent Him to suffer so that you could spend eternity with Me. But until you get here, everything is going to be okay. I AM.”

Because friends...

In an effort to be more regular in my blogging while I’m here in Virginia, I thought I should write again today. Usually when I think about writing on the blog, I consult my journal for a particular verse or thought that has struck me recently, and then I expound on it. But I can do that anywhere, so I thought maybe it would be more interesting if I continued talking about my experience here and what God has shown me over the past week. It is difficult to believe that it really has been a week already.

A friend from home sent me a text message tonight. She asked me, quite simply: “How are things going?” Without really thinking about it, I replied: “Super great. There are some amazing people here.” Then I thought about it. I thought about how my first response to a simple and vague question about how things are going was to say something about the people here. I could have said any number of things, but my nearly subconscious reaction was to convey something of how the people I’ve become friends with have had the biggest impact on my time away so far.

I don’t exactly consider myself a shy sort of person, but I expected there to be a bit of awkwardness as I settled into life here in Virginia. I expected to feel somewhat uncomfortable around groups where everybody except me knew everybody else. I expected to spend a lot of time on my own. When I first got here I mapped out my potential coffee shop haunts in anticipation of the great amounts of time I would spend in them. But I’m telling you these people are amazing. I say “these people” because there have been many of them. They have welcomed me into their lives as though I have been here for years. Every day this week I have had the opportunity to spend time with various new friends and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each of them. It is astounding to me that I can call someone “friend” and mean it most sincerely after having been here for just one week.

As my previously-mentioned friend from home pointed out, this is an incredible “testimony to God, because nobody would be kind to someone for no reason, except that God gives us a new nature and causes us to want to be kind.” Truly, the people of Sovereign Grace Church in Chesapeake, Virginia have no reason to be kind to me. But they, like me, have been given a new nature by God and I have experienced first-hand the expression of that grace they have received. I thank God for each of my new friends and for the kindness they have shown to me.

Simple Things And New Beginnings

New beginnings. Back in November, when God turned my life around after I tried to turn it away, I started a new journal and these were the first words I wrote: new beginnings. It wasn’t really anything new; it was a return to what had already been. But there’s a strange sort of parallelism between that time and this one. I finished another notebook on the morning before I left for Virginia Beach. And now once again I find these words in my mind… new beginnings. I’m in Virginia, by the way.

I’ve met a lot of new people, and I’ve reacquainted myself with a lot of people that I’ve previously only met in passing. They all ask me the same thing, and understandably. “So why are you here?” I don’t really tire of hearing it, because answering it reminds me of why I’m here. It reminds me of the work God is doing in my life, and how He is continuing that work by bringing me to Virginia Beach for these specific two weeks of my life. So why am I here? For the same reason I decided to take off school this semester: because I need to grow. Can I not grow at home in Georgia? Yes, but there are particular areas in which I believe it will serve me to be away from specific situations and distractions which might hinder that growth. Isn’t that kind of like running away from my problems? I don’t think so. I’m going back in two weeks, after all.

I hereby admit that I don’t know what the point of this post is. I guess it’s to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked, and to fill in those of you who have no idea where I’ve been and what I’m doing. I tell people my two practical goals while I’m here are to read a lot and to write a lot. Then they ask me what I’ve been reading, and what kind of writing I do. I rattle off the names of the nine or so books stacked up beside my bed, and I tell them that actually I haven’t done any writing yet, but I maintain a blog among other things. So I decided it was about time to write on the blog. But I’ve only been here for a few days, so maybe that’s a valid excuse.

I’ve been learning simple things, things that I already know but so easily forget. I read today in the gospel of Matthew how Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and then tempted by Satan. I was impressed anew by the all-encompassing ability of the Word of God to overcome temptation. “The only and guaranteed way to overcome overwhelming sin is to submerse myself in the Word of God which is applicable for all of life,” I wrote in my journal this morning. The other day I came across a verse in the book of Joel: “For strong is he who carries out His word” (Joel 2:11). This is true strength of faith: that I may carry out the Word of God by using its truths to fight and conquer temptations to sin.

Simple things and new beginnings. That’s what these two weeks are about. That’s what this semester is about. Do I miss everyone at home? Of course I do. But at the same time I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, because I am confident that this is where God wants me right now, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.