Emmanuel Grace

What is my story but the telling of the One that is leading me home. It becomes my song that I sing in praise to God, like Moses and Miriam singing after their great deliverance from Egypt, “In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.” (exodus 15:13)

I used to think my story was boring and would wonder why I didn’t have a ‘riveting’ testimony like those I would hear about who God brought out of drug addiction or who had done terrible things or had come from horrific circumstances to then find the love of God and have their lives completely transformed. I knew about Jesus, believed he died for me and that my sins were forgiven but where was the "inexpressible" joy and the transformation of life? How could I get there if I hadn’t had experiences like that and if it seemed like i was already there? Something still felt like it was missing…but what?

Jesus tells us that the rich in this world will have difficulty entering the Kingdom of heaven.  In the same way that Jesus didn’t mean just physical bread when he spoke about bread I believe that we can extend the meaning of “rich” from the materialistically wealthy to also mean those who live as I did(and that until just recently):

“good”  

That is, the spiritually “rich” . While the spiritually poor have nothing or very little of themselves to sustain them and so they depend on God for everything, even his blood, the rich have enough in themselves to not need God’s help, they can do it for themselves. If ‘goodness' was  currency, the poor see they have none of it but the rich have it stored up.   Like the rich in dollars who have no need to be helped out of debt or to ask for charity, the rich in spirit do not see the need to be saved from sin(if they are being honest). They may know they need it in their heads if they have been taught it but they have not experienced that need deep in their understanding. 

How can I truly believe in the power of the cross of Jesus and his resurrection if in in my heart I believe that i’m good at heart(or at least not so very bad as to deserve death)? How can I believe if my heart tells me the debt is a small one? As I write this, I see the danger, the hypocrisy, the pride I was in so clearly. How merciful he is!   It would be impossible to fit the amount of pride and self-righteousness I had into that needle’s eye! 

Thankfully, nothing is impossible for God. 

My story is that for much of my life, in my own eyes have I have flattered myself too much to detect or hate my sin. (psalm 36:2).  I was hungry and thirsty but my life ebbed away(psalm 107:) without my even knowing it. I wandered a desert wasteland looking for the city I could settle in. I knew how to read the map but I was too blind to ever see my condition for what it was: How deceitful my heart is! The deceit was there the day I was born when an inheritance passed down to each of us humans took root. That I could be like God. The deceit grew more ominous the day it secured it’s place deep inside; that my “goodness” was all my own and i had enough of it to please God. And the danger grew more rapidly  the day I willingly believed the lie that my successes, my ease, my dreams being achieved and my peace of mind and comfort of soul because of pleasant circumstances were indicators of peace with God and that my devotion to church and lack of any major struggle, internal or external, was a sign of a well-off spiritual walk. The danger was like that of the Israelites who forgot that it was God and not them, who brought them out of Egypt who gave them their abundance and who brought them into the promised land out of his own goodness, not theirs. They grew proud. Complacent. Forgetful. Arrogant. Ignorant. How like me. 

I was sincere in my searching and desire to know God even from the youngest age but these things in me had to go. I just didn’t know it yet. 

When we truly seek God, God will be found.