An Anniversary

Opportunities spring up from time to time, when we feel the need to stop and spend a moment in retrospection. Caught up in an overwhelming sense of nostalgia; we may feel the urge to reconnect with a long lost friend, or to jump in the car to return to a place from our past - needing the tangible and comforting shroud of something familiar. And when it is time, once again, to leave these things in the past, we are struck with a sense of loss.

I have been reading through the "account of Jacob," as recorded in Genesis 37-50. This simple account, which I learned as a child in Sunday school, has never spoken so clearly and so profoundly to me. As I look over this "account of Jacob," (which is more an account of Joseph) I am amazed at the clearness (however unusual) of God's immanent and sovereign direction over the events surrounding the tribe of Israel. I am astonished at the ways in which God used the difficult personalities, sinful natures and unlikely situations to bring about his own glory in Jacob's family. I am amazed that God would choose the line of the wicked Judah (and not of righteous Joseph) to bear the promised Messiah and "Second Adam." I understand the message God is sending, that, "salvation is based upon divine choice, and not upon the righteousness of men," but I confess that I would have chosen individuals of noble character and not half-breed-prostitutes to produce the King of kings. Clearly this shows that my ways are not God's ways.

Setting aside questions of "why" God does what He does, again I note the clarity of the message in this passage, which communicates that God is the author of history, and not an innocent bystander - and this is the type of message that should impact the way one lives their life. It is one thing to dogmatically affirm the doctrines of grace and the Sovereignty of God; it is quite another thing to live daily, remembering our place, as covenant children of the Sovereign God.

In an effort to see where God has led me in my recent past, caught in a moment of nostalgia, I found myself looking back into my journal. Much to my surprise, I found an entry submitted a year ago this week which marks a significant work of God in my life - I thought I'd share. Again, I see that receiving the message and realizing (and applying) the implications of the message are two separate steps in the journey...

- Journal Entry, February 11, 2006 -

I feel as though a great burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. It has been a long time since I have felt at peace with my personal theology, and it seems that the more time I invested in my Christian education, the greater my discomfort became. The faith of my childhood has metamorphosed into concern, cynicism and criticism, and I have often wondered if this road would lead me to unbelief. I traveled a long way down this winding corridor, yet, I could not commit the ultimate submission and embrace the tantalizing call of "open-theism". It was at this point that I came to a crisis in my walk with Christ, because, up to that moment, my attitudes, actions and beliefs laid a solid foundation for such a theology. In the way that I prayed, studied and ministered, God was not Sovereign.

I don't know when the sun rose, but I know that today it shines. Yesterday afternoon, I realized that I had undertaken a complete paradigm shift, and I became broken. As I was on I-64 heading to my night job from a long day at Seminary, I began to weep. At some point over the past year, I have come to embrace the theology of the reformation, yet my life did not testify to a man under the sovereignty of Yahweh Tsevaot. I realized that I have been living a life that is not submitted to God, but to my own flesh and depravity. And yet, once again, my Sovereign Lord has led me to a place of sanctifying progress.

I now think of all of the years, which have been wasted. Isn't it ironic that, as I sought to free myself from a "controlling-God" my burden only became greater. Yet now, as I submit myself to the IRRESISTIBLE GRACE of our Lord, I find myself under an easy yoke, my burden lifted.

Oh, Great and Mighty King,

I thank you that you have led me in your light. God, You are the Sovereign of the universe, and yet YOU have become my atonement. And this great work is entirely of Your doing, for in the days that I was under Your wrath I could not choose Your righteousness. It was You who chose me, and broke the chains of the fall. I submit myself to Your hand, seeking only Your face. I pray that your Holy Spirit would guide me to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide, and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that I might be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Amen.