Fight for Joy

There are so many words I wish to express right now and I have honestly no idea as to how this will end up. Yet, I feel God leading me to blog on what I have been going through in the last two weeks, and so I will let Him lead me in what I say.

I have been in a fight…a clawing, gnashing, relentless fight…but I have also been in a surrender…a broken, weeping, submissive surrender...

These last two weeks are weeks in which one generally wouldn’t want to remember, because of how tough it has been. Yet, I know I must, and be inclined to, because it has been such of two weeks that has been changing and transforming things I didn’t realize needed to be or were there. It has been two weeks of resistance to something so hauntingly foreign. It has been two weeks of bland apathy. It has been two weeks of terrifying anxiety and fear. It has been two weeks of weeping brokenness.

But, overall, it has been two weeks of grace magnified…

Be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear our and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills, a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord Your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord Your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day” (Deuteronomy 8:1-11)

I have been going through about 4 chapters of Deuteronomy in the last month and a half or so. I first read this chapter and passage about 2 weeks ago. It’s so interesting to go back and reread this passage and my initial reactions to it, because I was so wrong the first time around! I have possessed so much pride and self confidence, that I think that I have been through these “desert times” when in reality, I have not! I am not a completed work nor will I ever be close to being one. When I first read this passage, I skipped over the whole humility and desert years, a testing of our hearts by God. I figured I had been through this already, but the reality is, I have never been to the extent I have been in the last two weeks.

I realize now how I put myself on a pedestal so often. I have often thought that because I have been blessed and received favor from the Lord, that I was further along the road than most. I have been looking to what can I teach others and not thinking that I could truly receive something from them far greater than anything I could give them. I have been self-reliant and prideful in so many ways.

Yet in the last two weeks when God chose to strip me of everything I have ever known, including my joy, my world has changed and has been rocked by Him. I have found myself stripped bare, naked at the foot of His throne, in incredible sorrow and in need of so much grace. How hauntingly foreign this has been, and one of, if not the most difficult thing I have ever been through.

You see, I have absolutely no reason not to be joyful. God is alive and ever present in my life, especially as of late. That’s the kicker, but also a key…

All good things come from our Father in Heaven; He alone is the source and giver of everything, including this joy of which I have been fighting for. Must my eyes be so haughty to look upon him riddled in my own pride? They have been.

Laid bare in desperate need at the foot of the throne makes me not only remember, but extravagantly experience that I am nothing apart from Him.

For a while now, God has been breaking down my defenses and my indignant nature to be the strong one in every situation. It has been ingrained in me for so long that it has kept me from being real; in particular, with my struggles and weaknesses. I think for so long people have looked up to me as a leader and one of quiet strength and bold faith, in that people have not had a complete honest perception of me. God has been giving me many opportunities and calling me to be vulnerable. When living the heart of the Gospel, I am not to put on this picture of a perfect little happy woman who’s got it all together. For if I do, why would I need a Savior?

And the fact is ever so present that I am in desperate need of a Savior. That He came to take my place, overcame this world and lived a life without sin…that is something I will never ever be able to claim any rights to. Instead of living a façade of a pillar of strength, I need to display my need for grace and God’s abundance in providing.

Throughout this fight I have found it interesting in the fact that the more honest and open I am about what I am struggling with, the more ground is gained in the fight. Truth needs to be spoken in every way, and it needs to be lived. It has been forcing me to exercise a level of vulnerability I have never approached before, and Satan has been present in that. Praise be to my God that He is so much stronger.

I had a friend come to us completely broken and in fear last night. He does not know the Lord. As I listened to him speak through heaving sobs and saw and felt the anguish he was going through, I could relate to a lot of his emotions because of what God has brought me through in the last two weeks. Yet, I found myself so overwhelmed that God would magnify what other people go through personally in me so I would gain such a greater appreciation for grace. See, the difference between me and him is that I have him and he doesn’t. And that makes all the difference. My pain is bearable, because I live in fear of Him, who is good, while he just lives in fear. Like all things, He is greater than just myself. As I was so struck by his sobbing and mourning and his pain, I found myself torn at how he was feeling, but also realizing how can I not have peace and especially joy? What hope and joy I have in the Lord…so much. I am to bring Him joy.

As I was in Crusade on Wednesday night listening to the body worship, I was overwhelmed at the unity and beauty of it all. I was able to remember that my trials are but a mere part of what is going on in the body and how God is moving. God is so much bigger than myself and the trials I go through. And God has been using these past two weeks, difficult means, to prepare me for what is to come.

Such a fight for joy…

And one ending in myself, a beggar and sinner, filthy at the throne of Righteousness, realizing my desperate need of my Savior’s grace…

And abundant grace He gives.

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lighted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be astounded. They will put their trust in the Lord. Oh the joys of those who trust the Lord, who have no confidence in the proud, or in those who worship idols. O Lord my God, you have done many miracles for us. Your plans are too numerous to list. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them…but may all who search for you be filled with joy and gladness. May those who love your salvation repeatedly shout, ‘The Lord be exalted!’ Psalm 40:1-5, 16