Let Him be God

As our life unfolds each day, and the days continue into weeks and fill in seasons, I've found that this current season has been long. The past year has been a conglomeration of major life events, huge physical stresses, and a bunch of other miscellaneous things that pull together a well-rounded feeling of chaos. It would feel hopelessly so (and I'm not gonna lie, sometimes it has been just that) but He's been there even when I've felt Him less and less. The dichotomy is queer and yet... filling. It fills what would seem like merely a life of dismantling and disappointment with purpose. And it provides me with a challenge to faith that goes beyond my previously experienced definition. I have not ever been so pressed to believe in Someone bigger than myself. The pressing provides for discovery that cannot be matched in any other way. Discovering God amidst a broken world is a journey indeed.

One thing I've found is that faith is not like some extra cash in your pocket to simply compensate for a bill and move on your way. It's not cheap. We don't just get to say, "Oh yeah, I got this" and breeze through each wake in our life. Reality is, the wakes aren't even always wakes, they can be tidal waves or typhoons. But the point is, faith isn't a mere something within easy reach that we pull off the shelf when we need it. Faith is work. It's a muscle. And it gets exercised by life because life is hard. This world is falling apart, our bodies fall apart, and a whole lot of other plans and relationships and things do too. When we think of faith as a quick fix to feel better about all the chaos of our lives, it stifles the living, breathing, growing aspect of faith and makes God small and far away and a mere "addition" to "our life now." But when enough of "life" happens, throwing you into the reality that you don't have enough to handle the chaos, faith has to take a shift. It gets stretched to be real; as real and big as God is. And this is beyond us.

That's right now for me. This last year has held one thing after another, rolling into that tidal wave. And then sometimes it even starts to lightning and thunder on top of it all. Hate to be dramatic, but just keeping it real. The inevitable frustration finds its moments and I'm pushed to realize that I've got nothing. You may get that feeling: that when so much is going on on the bigger scale of life, along with a bunch of other little things, it leaves you completely inhibited for even the simplest endeavors. The weight and frustration and questions bear on the rest of living. So you gotta deal with it. At least that's how I feel. And yet, life doesn't just go on hold for that. We don't get a temporary hiatus to process and reflect, which again keeps our human frailty in greater perspective. Not only can I not handle my life right now, I can't even handle how I can't handle it. Ha! Right.

So. I'm pressed beyond the borders of self-dependence. That battle never seems to end no matter how much I realize my insufficiency, but getting real with it means faith has to happen. I am not enough. I am not enough for life's demands. I am not enough to figure out how to be enough. I am infinitely limited, in fact. This is no pity party. And it seems mighty depressing. But I'm finding that in the reality of my weakness and inability and unending lack of knowing everything and having control, God has to become God to me. Faith really has to happen.

Perhaps I "feel" Him less. But I have to trust Him more. Not just for the day-to-day things, but for the utterly fundamental. I have to face fear, doubt, questions, and weakness with, "You are God: You've got to be big enough for this." He's got to be bigger than me, than us. He can't be limited by our knowledge and abilities, and certainly not by our mess and the world's devastations. He wouldn't be God then. He would just be another person. And I, for one, do not want to be banking on someone like you or me, or even the most accomplished doctor or well-read scholar, to see me through. Because, at the end of the day, we just don't know everything. We don't have control. We are small.

I look up, knowing that He's there. Knowing that if I want to know that all He's said He is is true, I have to keep believing and depending. And my favorite part? That He is faithful even when I am faithless. Isn't that beautiful? He still is, even when I don't think or feel He is. He still goes on existing, loving, and holding all things apart from my constantly evolving feelings or thoughts. And He holds me. And, in the landscape of life I've found myself in, I have to keep pressing in, believing His chest is there where my head is resting. And I'm safe.

I want to know God as big as He is and not merely as a convenient comfort for my worldly life. He's greater than this world. And this world is not enough. I want what, Who, is. And I have to trust He wants it even more than me.

This chaos is purposeful. He wants us to know Him. To know Him we have to know ourselves. We are not enough. The end of us is a door to Him. We can try swimming against the tidal waves of insufficiency with more strokes of effort or even denial. Or we can ride the rapids through the door, succumbing to reality and casting ourselves upon Him. Believing His bigness and trusting He's enough and finding how much more He loves us. This faith is the more strenuous stroke.

He is God. Let Him be God for you.

 

(image originally posted by unbrokenbygrace)