Mudpies

Okay, I know it. God wants me to be holy. God wants me to not pursue the things of the world and what my flesh cries out for. So I run hard. Sometimes I run past the breaking point. I discipline myself. I tell myself:

“I’ll pummel my body and make it my own. I’ll think of others over myself.”

“I’ll count it all joy, whatever the trial, no matter how hard the circumstance.”

“I WILL make myself holy, I WILL sanctify myself, I WILL be joyful, I WILL not worship any other.”

Running, running, running… pooped. Getting up, walking, my legs are tired, my lungs gasping, I fall down. I crawl, and the finish line seems an eternity away. Paul said it! It’s a marathon! Just gotta keep running, striving, fighting! GO GO GO!

Temptations come, I fall. I grow angry, selfish, lazy, lustful, unloving, prideful.

I can’t do this.

How long can you keep this up? Where has the joy gone? Was this what life in Christ was meant to look like? How come it was so much easier earlier on in my Christian life when everything was so new, fresh, and passionate?

Jesus says these words in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The Pharisees wanted to burden the people with strivings, policies, traditions, and safeguards. Their yoke was heavy. But I find myself doing the same thing in my own life. I gotta do these things to make God happy. If not, God will be disappointed.

And the weird thing is, I know this isn’t true. I know the truth of the gospel. I know I’m found in Christ, and I understand that in some mysterious way, I am perfect in the eternity-now. I know that because God sees all of time in a glance, my understanding of temporal sanctification from the beginning of my life to the end is different than God who already has it completed. That THAT is why His love for me can never change. That hope is sure to be realized, and the hope in which we constantly live, that we will one day cease the striving (Rom 8). That we have a God of hope that makes us abound in hope (Rom 15:13).

I know these things in the mind, but I keep forgetting it in the heart. I was reading in Galatians 3 today and verse 10 said this:

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”

and it continues,

“Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”

Many times I still live under the law. I place it on myself. Today, Paul’s cry in Galatians 2 rang so true to me, even though he speaks of the Jews, “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works fo the law no one will be justified.” I am justified by faith, but I place myself under the law, the very thing that sin uses to bond.

I think that I need to run. Holiness, sanctification, being Christ-like, these becomes the end goal for me. And while they should be goals, the way I’m trying to achieve it is flipped upside down. By running on my own and striving on my own, I completely distort the gospel, and I fail. In fact, it just tires me out.

And so I hear the words of Jesus again, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus beckons a certain type of people. Those who labor and are heavy laden. Those who are tired. Those down trodden. Those tired of striving after holiness on their own. Those tired from the sin that burdens! And what does he say to them? COME. COME! Come to me! He longs to give us rest. His yoke is easy, his burden is light, and I can find rest for my SOUL in him. Not my physical body, but my SOUL. That’s what needs the most rest. It’s easy to find rest for the body. We find a time every single day to restore our bodies, whether we sleep 3 hours or 8. But how often do we find our spiritual rest, our soul rest in Christ? Should this not be done regularly as well? Is this a call from Christ to come once? I don’t think so. Yes, it is an instantaneous command, but I think the coming is continuous. The call to rest in him is continuous. Cease striving yourself, but strive in me, because in me is rest. Jesus says in John 7:37, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” Again a continuous command. Come once to drink? No come again and again! I will grow thirsty over and over again.

What I do is I find my water elsewhere. I find it in TV shows to give me rest. In sports, in idle time, in cleaning (I dunno why this one, makes me feel in control), in Keziah (sorry Keziah!), in naps, anything and everything. But when you’re thirsty, will you drink salt water? I feel like sometimes that’s what it’s like, taking solace in the world. Taking rest in the world. It’s just not thirst quenching. In fact, it sometimes makes me feel more like I’m in a hole, more tired, more thirsty. Only coming to Jesus, the spiritual Rock (1 Cor 10:4) quenches my thirst. And I must come back to him over and over again to gain relief. To find true rest. To find out again and again that only in him is there joy and hope in my strivings.

This is the joy of the gospel that restores day by day, moment by moment. That I simply need come to him and lay everything at his feet, all the worries and anxieties, the insecurities and sins, and find the truth of the Word of God meet me everytime. That the promises written in Scripture are not simply words, but realities… truths that cannot be warped. Yes, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is one of unchanging character.

Oh the joy! My sin is separated from me as far as the east is from the west! As deep as the ocean floor, it is taken away! My sin is no more! What must I strive for!

And with this truth, the striving that must continue becomes that much easier. That as I fight the truth that I am still in the flesh, it is now done not in bondage under the law, that I must DO something… but now it is done in joy, in gratefulness, in understanding of my shortcomings, but Jesus’ infinite meeting of that.

[I LOST THE REST OF MY POST. WILL CUT IT SHORT HERE.]