Good Things for a Bad Person?

It is a scary place, this spinning speck of dirt caught between the tide of heaven and hell.  When my imagination brings some meaning to the information my brain is collecting, I am so relieved to know I am saved from the terror.  It’s scary to know I am so close and it is so easy, so regular to end up drifting in ignorance, rebellion and abject stupidity into the abyss. 

I am at odds with my base desires when I soften to the strong, quiet affections of Jesus.  But, oh, it is a worthy effort to let go and rest in them.

  My base desires do not lead to good.  They strengthen and expand the dark, lonely and desperate places in my heart.  I can feel myself fighting, straining to resist the tenderness that my weakness needs so desperately.  I am afraid to admit my need, to let go, to be unprotected.  Hah – as if I could protect myself.  What a lie.  What a bold deception to accept so readily.  How embarrassing.  Truly, I am head shaking and ashamed that for most of my waking, I am unaware of the habits that lead me by degrees off this safe and difficult path.  I pretend unconsciously to satisfy necessary inclinations and produce justifiable results for my spent time.  I’m protecting myself.  I am participating in a lie that destroys even while I can see the truth.

When I am awake and aware, I can see, dimly but clear enough to discern the right direction.  It is different than normal.  It leaves the supposed safety of what I supposedly know behind me.  It is a treacherous path that will kill my flesh and deny my base desires.  It is dark and lonely on this path.  I have been attacked and persecuted.  I have been led through pain, doubt and fear day after day after day.  The relief I imagine and wait for is achingly slow.

But the dimmest light I see warms through the cold and darkness.  No shadow resists, no pain lasts and no fear is real enough.  He loves me.  I am loved and known.  My wandering and questions fit into his intimate understanding of me.  He knows what has happened to make me this way.  He gets it more than me.  And he loves me still, through it and in spite of it.  His love is so strong, so pure and overwhelming that my brokenness is repaired.  I cannot even begin to fathom.  It would be dishonoring to think I could.  But I can imagine.

He has put himself in me.  He has drawn me up, out and into himself.  He has touched me from his great strength with an eternal quality of tenderness that leaves me trembling.  His life and heartbeat, his very breath reverberate through my flesh and bones, shaking me and breaking me recklessly.  It is a force, this passionate love in dim light that I yearn for more of.  I want with an indescribable hunger for it to last.  I cannot wait for more light, more love and more power ringing through it all.

The cost of this love he gives to me.  The price he paid to give it.  It shames me.  I hurt to know I required it of him.  That he loves me still… I’m amazed.  That he loves me so well, so without reservation, so completely like I am the only one.  I am lost to it.  I can only imagine and feel.  My brain is not up to the task.

Thank you Jesus for your light, your love, your mercy and your sacrifice.

I am yours.