The Second Best Love Story Ever Written

So lately I've been dealing with the problem of not giving God all control of my life. It's really been a struggle for me, because I'm the type of person that wants to take charge of every situation. Over the years, that quality has been sort of been a blessing and a curse: God's allowed me to be a leader and use my gifts to glorify Him, but I've often gone beyond that and tried to be the god of my own life. Suffice to say, it hasn't and won't ever go well. Jeremiah 29 makes it pretty clear that God is a planning God, and His will for our lives is definitely better than anything we could ever imagine.


The most difficult part of my life that I've not been giving up to God has been how I go about relationships with my sisters in Christ. Like I said, I'm a person who wants to know the details of what my future holds, but God keeps on telling me that that's not how things work in His plan. I feel almost like a pestering child when I keep asking God "Is it her? No? How about her?" and God tells me "I've got it figured out already. This isn't a guessing game. I'll let you know when you're ready." But I'm impatient. I'd like to either know something about who she'll be or take steps towards pursuing her now, but God has other plans. Thankfully He is changing me into a person who is more content in Him right now and not as worried about what my future will hold.


Here's where He's especially convicted me-and what the title of this post means. God is the writer of the best love story every put down on paper. Somewhere in eternity past, He decided that, first of all, He would allow humanity to fall into sin. It wouldn't make sense at the moment to us, but it would be for the best. Then, He would limit Himself to being a human being. I don't think we ever truly appreciate how humbling that alone is. God became man. Creator became creation. But He didn't stop there; He then died for us in the worst way possible. And, on top of that, His death was for people who didn't even deserve to be died for! Romans 5:7-8 says it pretty well: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That's three different ways He showed his love! Any of those alone would be commendable by human standards. But God went above and beyond, as He always does, and did all three of them.


So I figure, if God is so good at writing a love story, why don't I let him write mine? If I really believe that He is who He says He is - an all-knowing, all-powerful, all loving God who will work all good and bad things for my eventual holiness - why do I cling so tightly to what I want when it comes to love? It's as if I'm trying to one-up a perfectly written romance novel with a cheesy junior high love song. I shouldn't be doing it. But change is difficult; God never said our sanctification would be an easy process. As I begin to let Him take control, however, I keep seeing more and more how His plan is best.

The Prodigal

The Bible tends to address the topic of running away from God and coming back to him a lot. I mean, seriously, how about the entire books of Judges and Hosea, along with countless other passages about it? The topic must be important, huh? The more I go through life, the more I realize that my need for grace again and again is dire. And the passages I keep "running into" are helping me know that God knew this was going to happen. I mean take the book of Hosea: God tells this guy to to take a prostitute for a wife so that God can demonstrate His love for Israel. The prostitute not only passively happens upon multiple extra-marital affairs, but actually pursues them. However, in order to demonstrate what God's love for Israel is like, God commands Hosea to keep receiving her back again.  My need for this kind of grace has become so apparent recently. Just like any other guy, I have times where I struggle with lust. But there are also times that I find myself actively pursuing those lustful thoughts, and after the fact, I ask God "what the heck did I just do?" What if, God forbid, He replied by saying "I dunno. That's the fiftieth time this week. I'm done with you." AH! Thank Him it's not that way! If it were, I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago. But no, instead, even after blatantly pursuing a sin and committing it against the God of the universe, He says "Confess. Move on. Continue to pursue holiness. I forgive you!" I'm sitting here thinking that I could just write that same sentence over and over again, and even the thousandth time it would still have the full amazing effect! God is so good! How I wish I were more satisfied in Him in times of trials.

And speaking of trials, a testament to God's goodness has been the last few weeks of my life. I was at complete burnout point physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I was at a coffee shop 4 to 5 hours on Sunday trying to finish up school from the last week, and 2 of those hours were spent on a physics test that I didn't understand and was getting extremely frustrated with. As I left the coffee shop, I seriously felt like just up and leaving, going to Iowa or South Dakota or Wisconsin to hang out with some camp friends and get school off of my mind (Thank Him that it didn't get anywhere past a thought. What a mess that would have been...). Between Monday night and Tuesday morning, I found rest in God. Not just a physical rest, but a peace. I was reading Philippians 4 a couple of weeks ago (one of those times where I wished I had a blog, now I do), and I came across the verses about peace. Here's what I wrote in my journal as I read: Don't be anxious, but instead pray, and God will give you peace that guards your hearts from the anxiousness. I realize it is pretty similar to the actual verses, but I thought it was interesting to keep these verses together and break them down into three sections, instead of reading them separately from one another, as we so often do. So here's what I got from it. One, don't be anxious. Two explains what we do to achieve One, pray! Three tells us what God will do--give us a peace that will guard our heart. This isn't just any ordinary peace, though! It's an active peace, not only giving us rest but also fighting off any anxiousness  that may come our way. So good to know! Human obtained peace cannot be kept if it is being attacked. It simply can't. God's peace can, though. 

Anyways, back to what I was saying before, since Monday night, God's peace has flooded into my life. Here comes the tough part though: even with God's peace, I have stumbled. More like willingly had my face ground in the dirt, actually. It pains me to admit it, because now, looking back upon even today, I see the peace that God has given me, and then I see how I've sinned. God brought me to my knees tonight. I don't say that to sound spiritual, because its not something that I hardly ever do--it was clearly God bringing me to my knees both physically and spiritually. I've had enough. And I know I'll will fail in the future, but now I know why I've been having so much trouble dealing with sin; relying on God to help me through my temptations has been the exception, not the rule. And it's time for change.

This is what's up with God in my life lately. Hope He's impacted you in some way or another by reading it. God bless, and I may post something again soon :).

Beginnings

I've wanted to start a blog for a while now. There are just certain times where I have ideas and things God has put on my heart that I want to share with people. So, if you're reading, thanks for taking the time to stop by, hope you enjoy, and I pray God uses my posts to impact someone's life.