However, on Sunday morning, I woke up and made a random decision to drive to Hixson, where I knew there would be a Starbucks. It was about 25 minutes away, and when I got there, I sat down with my hot chocolate (I know, I'm a sad excuse for a coffee drinker) and a scone…and opened my Bible. My current plan for Bible reading involves selecting a book to read for a month. I read it over and over again, hoping that eventually the words will sink deep into my memory and pop up when I need them most. The book for this month has been 2 Timothy, and every time I read it I am absolutely blown away. It's just crazy.
So today, in this blog, I want to simply share with the few people who actually read this what I've been reading lately, and what I'm taking away from it. Hopefully it will encourage some of you. :)
***
As I stated before, the entire book is amazing, but I'm finding that chapter 2 is becoming one of my all-time favorite passages of Scripture. It is insanely filled with amazing thoughts. For example:
"This is a trustworthy saying:
If we die with Him,
we will also live with Him.
If we endure hardship,
we will reign with Him.
If we deny Him,
He will deny us,
If we are unfaithful,
He remains faithful,
for He cannot deny who He is."
(2 Timothy 2:11-13)
Think about it. If we are unfaithful…He remains faithful. He cannot deny who He is.
God is LITERALLY incapable of abandoning us…no matter how far from Him we may run. To turn His back for one instant on our pitiful, sin-filled existence would go against the very nature of who He is. Despite constant rebellion, our daily wanderings from Him and His love…He never stops pursuing us and being the most faithful, committed Lover of our souls.
Is that not the most beautiful thought?
However, there's another twist to this.
I'm also reading, as part of my daily growth plan, the book "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey. The book is completely focused on digging into the life and personality of Jesus, exposing Him in a way that most Christians never allow themselves to consider. In one particular chapter, Yancey delves into the idea of God's miraculous restraint; that is, why God chose (and continues to choose) to hold back His power and influence throughout history, allowing people to come to Him of their own accord instead of simply demanding all of creation's worship and adoration. He says,
"The more I get to know Jesus, the more impressed I am by what…[is] called 'the miracle of restraint.' The miracles Satan suggested, the signs and wonders the Pharisees demanded, the final proofs I yearn for--these would offer no serious obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is His refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God's terrible insistence of human freedom is so absolute that He granted us the power to live as though He did not exist, to spit in His face, to crucify Him."
Even though God is unable to desert us as we desert Him…even though He cannot ever stop loving us despite our almost continuous betrayal…He will never force us to change our minds or "prove" His way into our lives. But why? Why does He let us leave Him for the world's fleeting temptations on a nearly daily basis? To this question, Yancey replies,
"I believe God insists on such restraint because no pyrotechnic displays of omnipotence will achieve the response He desires. Although power can force obedience, only love can summon a response of love, which is the one thing God wants from us and the reason He created us."
God doesn't need our love to survive. But He craves it…just as we do. Think: We are created in the image of God. It blows my mind to think that our hearts' desperate need to be loved and desired by someone else is also a reflection of His heart, overflowing with longing for our love and desire for Him.
Go read that last sentence again. Make sure you grasp that idea.
I mean, whoa.
***
Here's another verse.
"In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use. If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work."
(2 Timothy 2: 20-21)
Oh, to be clean. I freely admit that I haven't felt truly clean, truly pure in a long, long time. So many things from my past…decisions made by myself, actions taken by others; all of it produces an unsightly mess and a jagged scar around my soul. Most days, I feel heavy with remorse and crippled by regret. And yet, despite these yearnings to be better, to be different…I still find myself struggling daily with wanting the exact opposite. When will the battle be over? When will I truly be pure and be a clean slate for God to use the way He wants to? My heart wants to be ready…if only I could scrub and sanitize the rest of me.
In "The Jesus I Never Knew," Yancey briefly addresses the issue of purity, and the fallacies with common Christian "stay pure" statements. Examples:
-"Marriage will cure lust." (It won't.)
-"With self-discipline you can master lust. (…with maybe a 3% success rate.)
-"True fulfillment can only be found in monogamy." (Tell that to every single person out there.)
He goes on to quote Francois Mauriac, a French Catholic writer who published a book entitled "What I Believe." Mauriac spent a great deal of time poring over these "statements" and came to the conclusion that there was, in actuality, only one reason to stay pure. He said,
"Impurity separates us from God. The spiritual life obeys laws as verifiable as those of the physical world…Purity is the condition for a higher love--for a possession superior to all possessions: that of God. Yes, this is what is at stake, and nothing less."
Isn't it infuriating how the questions we struggle with the most always seem to boil down to the simplest answer? To conclude his thoughts on the subject, Yancey states,
"The love God holds out to us requires that our faculties be cleansed and purified before we can receive a higher love, one attainable in no other way. That is the motive to stay pure. By harboring lust, I limit my own intimacy with God."
So there it is.
If you, like me, desire to be a clean life for God to use as He sees fit; if you, like me, find yourself constantly being unfaithful to Him, take comfort in these two simple facts:
God wants our lives to be clean and pure just as much, if not more, than we do.
And no matter how many times we fail on this incredibly uphill journey…
He will never-I repeat, NEVER-stop loving us for one solitary moment.
Because, to put it even more simply, He can't.
And that is the most comforting fact of all.
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