"Continue seeking Him with seriousness. Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him." ⏤ C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis, letter to Genia Goelz, June 13, 1951
I saw this quote on a Facebook meme, and as I read it, I had a strong, visceral reaction and started to cry. I didn't know what was going on, so I emailed my sister. I knew she would have some insight, having grown up in the same household.
Me: "Why do you think this affected me like a punch in the gut and made me bawl?"
Sis: "Root of rejection: not wanted just for who you are."
Me: "I have never felt wanted for who I am. Never."
Sis: "Choose to believe Him, no matter how you Feel."
Me: "Yes, always, but only by pure faith."
Yeah, sad I know. But God was shining a light on some wrong thinking that I didn't know I had, presuming that he didn't want me for just me, but maybe hopefully, for the good things I do. Actually, God wanting me at all was, I realized, a foreign concept. I understood the concept and I had thought I believed it, but deep down, it was more like I was chasing after him. Trying so hard to get it right so he would accept me. Following the rules. Sacrificial service. Being a "good girl."
Now I would like to share with you here how God wonderfully answered both me and my sister. I would like to share it with you just as it happened because God is so amazing. The next morning, I received this email from her.
"I have been meditating on Ps.19. Something I never saw before is in vs. 13 [Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!] - the word presumptuous stuck out to me because I have always just 'presumed' a familiarity with that word and read on. This time I stopped and Holy Spirit whispered, 'your own understanding and not mine.'
"Presumptuous sins ... what are they?
"Sins I commit: thinking I know how things should go; thinking I know how God feels or thinks or what He wants me to do. Presuming I know what His love even is, let alone believe He loves me or decide He never could ... arrogance to think I could ever know better or enough. '...let them not have dominion over me.'"
Her email took my breath away because God had already been at work in me that morning, preparing me for her email. This is what I could write back.
"Wow! This morning, I turned by 'mistake' to February instead of January in my One Year Bible. In Mark it talks about people thinking they know who Jesus is: Mark 6:1-3 ["Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.] and in Mark 6:14-16 [Some were saying, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead" ... Others said, "He is Elijah" ... still others claimed, "He is a prophet."]. I even wrote in the margins 'they thought they knew who He was.'
"And then, in the correct selection for today [Matthew 15:1-28] it talks about 'blind guides leading the blind.' How the Pharisees and the disciples presumed what God considered "defiled," and the disciples presumed that Jesus would send away the "defiled" gentile woman."
This part here is so mercifully, lovingly just-like-God amazing! The Pharisees criticizes Jesus and the disciples for eating with defiled hands, "They don't wash their hands before they eat!" But Jesus answers, "What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them."
Then the disciples look down on the "defiled" Canaanite woman and urge Jesus to "send her away." So, Jesus does, saying, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." But she does not go away or give up. In fact, with all the presumptions about Jesus, she alone seems to have known who he really was/is: Lord, Son of David! And what his character was: Lord, help me! And therefore, she had the faith to not give up but to seek him "with seriousness."
Yes, I have presumed that God is like earthly, flawed human beings. That he does not want me just for me. I need to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I pray the prayer of David, also, in the day's selection, another verse from Psalm 19:
May the word of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14
One more thing I've got to share. Just a few minutes later there appeared in my email the verse for the day from Beholding Him Ministries. (So often God uses Pat to speak to me!) All the presumptions of my mangled heart give way. This – this! – is who the sweet, gentle, loving Lord really is:
'Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,' nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; 'he will lead them to springs of living water.' 'And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.' Revelation 7:16-17
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