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Sometimes I write after my darkest moments. The times I lose control. I am a victim of my own desire, and there is no need to waste my breath cursing a perfect God.
We question why God did not make us perfect, but we spend a lot of time trying to get our own way. For those of you that pursue perfection, you know that achieving perfection is an oxymoron uttered by a real moron. It just does not happen. But those that love God keep trying. We do not stop fighting. But we often seek our own way.
Amazing, is it not? After thousands of years and endless tools, we still fall short of perfection. Sin throughout history has not been unique, just pursued through different avenues. Sometimes we question how anyone in the Bible fell to sin but often forget they did not even have a Bible from which to learn. And yet we have the Bible, and we still fall short. Why are we still casting stones? There is a considerable difference between Christ-centered admonishment and hell-bound judgment. All too often, we cast the first stone and are the first to beg for forgiveness.
We have done a lot to define what a good American Christian looks like. Love God, love your family, support the troops. Church on Easter and Christmas and prayers after a shooting. Being an American Christian is not very hard. It is like dressing up for Halloween every couple of weeks. Just have to put on a show for an hour and try not to fall asleep. How many of us are yearning for spiritual maturity?
Pursuing maturity gives me great respect for the patience of my parents. God has to spoon feed me passages I should already know. I spit up on His shirt and kick and scream when I do not get my way. And I am confused about why I am still struggling? How is this possible? I ate for two days, did not listen to my Father's instruction, so why am I still sinning? All the years and I am still learning to walk. The Father's discipline I am learning to love.
I am grateful for Kanye West. Young in his faith, like me. I remember being lost and yearning for Christ but not understanding how to pursue the gospel. Feeling like the world needed to know I was a Christian when I could not convince myself. We got a lot of people slamming a guy that could share the gospel with more people in a day than we could meet in a lifetime. We ought to be praying for his maturity. Were we any different?
Satan wants every part of me. He is attacking my weakest points. I look around and wonder if I am all alone. That's what Satan does to us. He knows where we are inadequate. He finds the darkness. Slowly as time drags on, he attempts to beat us down to the point we collapse.
We will always be in service to something. Of that, I am sure. And the choice of whom we serve is up to us though Satan veils the option in inevitability. We do not have to be a salve to our sexual desires. Being honest does not keep us from being hired. Being vulnerable does not prevent us from being loved. Though we can find many cases where the statistics seem to drown out the truth of God.
In Satan's kingdom, we are a shadow in the darkness. Nobody will see us. Nobody will care. The loneliness that drips from our heart and pierces our soul will flow forevermore in the pits of hell. But, beyond all logical reason, we find ourselves stuck in a cycle where we believe that this world offers more.
Amid all the darkness, Christ still sees us. Christ always seeks us. And the hope that sets us free has been available since we arrived in darkness. Is there a limit to God's mercy? I certainly hope not. With a limit, I have no hope. And I serve a God whose love and forgiveness are boundless, even with a wretched sinner like me.
A woman can find me in the darkness, and I will have company. But the pain and loneliness will exist all the more. Money can be made where I am forgotten, and I can build a mansion that will be torn down. I can lie to move closer to what a perceive is light, but the illusion leads to more and more darkness. Alone in a pit, I will be forgotten filling my time with hopeless endeavors.
But the light does something different. It does not offer a wife or money. It does not provide immediate perfection or freedom from trouble. It merely guides the broken through a maze of sin and frustration to a glorious throne with unwavering hope. At the end of the race will not be a reward for our perfection, but a gift of resurrection. There will be a crown of glory offered that signifies what God has done through us, not what we have done without Him. The light pierces through lies that, forever, we must be bound to the darkness. It flows through the eye of the needle to remind us that, all those years ago, Christ took a cross on our behalf. If you are reading, the light has found you. Forgiveness existed before you were born, your choice to accept it now rests in your hands. And the Holy Spirit has come to offer you endless hope in a broken world. Because God has loved us enough to be patient despite how many times we have turned our back on Him. Shame is not His fear tactic but Satan's veil, and the God of hope yearns for us to follow the light. The world is darkness press forward, so why not be guided toward a light that will never cease?
God has not forgotten us. Some of us just have more deep-rooted habits than we thought existed. Slowly God will root up everything we thought made us whole. The light burns away all that we thought gave us hope. We are made new from nothing, out of darkness into the light, because He has saved a broken generation.
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