Several months, almost a year passes with me only seeing small attitude problems and short non-festering sins. In small group I express some of the issues I am trying to work out with my view of God. Having taken a good bit of Bible classes in college I'd establish and thoroughly believed and was convicted of certain views. To name a few: election (God chooses some to be his children), we are being made like Christ (we die a little and Christ grows in us), and our powerlessness. I have a lot more established views, but those are the two I'd like to talk about today.
First a little wind on the fire (a story):
Given over to sin
Two weeks ago after small group we were heading home. I was thirsty. I told Ben I was really thirsty and I wanted him to stop for a drink. This is not a normal request normally I'd just wait until we got home, but I was particularly thirsty. The car ride home is 20 to 25 mins so asking wasn't ridiculous, but he just told me to wait. I proceed to become a squeaky wheel. I complained, and asked again. With Ben the squeaky wheel just is annoying, it doesn't get oil. I threatened to complain until I got my way and he was then stubborn, he would not stop. (Side note: With Ben manipulation often has the intentional opposite effect on him. He sees it more then even the manipulator and it causes him to rebel against it... he views it as insulting). I just let my mind go and the sinful thoughts became unreasonable and severe. By the time we got home I was filled with hate. My heart was black ugly mean and utterly sinful. I tried to pass it off like I felt possessed like I wasn't myself and asked how that could be. Then the most amazing and hard to accept thing happened. After telling Ben it felt like it wasn't my own thoughts going through my head, he boldly told me "but they are your thoughts". For the first time I could not logic reason or manipulate my way out. I realized he was right and they were MY evil thoughts. Just letting my sin nature take over one time had caused enormous internal sin. It disgusted me.
In that time of sin I thought of suicide (don't worry I'm not depressed or particularly troubled), vague life without a spouse (not necessarily divorce, but a what if he weren't around) , flying away for some me time (running from confrontation and my problems) and other bad things.
I can't believe I (who love Ben and my family very much) could think of those things under any circumstance. God revealed my pride (and self-righteousness) and my ability to sin in such a low pressure simple situation as my husband not buying me a drink! What a sinful self exalting person I am!
It was depressing to think I could be so mean... God let those thoughts fester and rub me for a week before showing me the gem. God used that to make me think and wrestle more with my thoughts and this is what it produced:
Election - God chose me!?! I wanted to think that. To be thankful that God chooses some, but my fleshly pride made me think I, myself, was good and deserved God's favor. Instead of thinking how sad I was to see that some people would die and go to hell.... I saw that even I a redeemed child of God am given over to sin. If I can think these thoughts for a moment and I have the holy spirit in me fighting to keep sin away then certainly someone without that gift cannot fight the thoughts as effectively. The thoughts I had show me my evil nature and that I did deserve hell. God's choosing even one of us is a huge huge blessing.
Being made like Christ - I have to admit although I knew myself to be wrong (hence the struggle) it bothered me that "I" was dying to myself and being "replaced" with Christ. Oh how thankful I am that God made me struggle with that! I have always seen myself as a good person, but when Ben told me that those (sinful) thoughts WERE mine.... I was disgusted! How evil and sinful I am! Thank you God that you are eradicating that cancer! Thank you that you are killing me (my flesh) the mutated cancer of sin. The person I always saw myself as (the actually good part that I believed was myself and my doing) is Christ in me! The good part of me I was afraid was changing... is the renewed person God is transforming me into. God is transforming the part of me that isn't who I like into the part I like. I want to be made like Christ because that is the only part of myself I truly like. I won't loose person-hood... Each of us make up a unique part of the bride of Christ, we are complete together! We can't be made like Christ alone, He is infinite so it's gonna take a lot of different people renewed to reflect Him.
Our powerlessness - It's a good thing we have no power in ourselves because our sinful flesh would be dangerous with any power. God can use us and even allow us to be part of His power. Christ living in us has power in us and possibly in others. If the holy spirit didn't have power, I'd be completely given over to sin... so really there is power in me... just not my power. To God be the glory for the work in me that I am very truly thankful for.
There is still some mystery to these things... but the mystery of God is not for me, the revealed is for me and I praise God that He does reveal!
