Originally published on June 20, 2015.
On days when the weight of the past is crushing your spirit (and you wonder if you’ll ever grow beyond this ugliness, ever learn to be someone different), the first place to go is back to the Cross. Seems strange to revisit death when all you really want is a new life. But that’s the thing about resurrection power, that it can’t burst out of the grave until something dies. We should know this by now, because God has built it right into the framework of our natural world, the Creator showing Himself in everything He has made: dried up seeds are buried and sprout with new life, every day the sun sets us into night and then rises again so we can begin again, Winter keeps turning into Spring. In the same way, the pain of the cross leads to the resurrection: no shortcuts, no easier route to glory. “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) It’s my self-preoccupation that needs to die a little more every day, so that the Holy Spirit can re-make me. Jesus’ haunting question persists: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)
So there is no use wasting time trying to figure out how to fix yourself, or hiding the gaping holes so that maybe no one will notice…or worse yet, wallowing in regret till it drags you under. Welcome the discomfort as a necessary step of growth and keep following it straight to the Cross, the only real solution in heaven and earth. There are some things you just aren’t strong enough to deal with on your own, and your own messiness is one of them. Better to admit that, sooner rather than later– better to leave the pride behind, so your hands are free to reach for the Grace that flows down from the Beloved’s sacrifice for us.
Because Heaven already planned a solution for human brokenness; there is a Savior, who came to earth because “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22) He knows the grip of fear. He understands the way people can wound, and how difficult it is to trust. He knows the shame of failure, and the darkness we carry around inside, and how it presses the hope from a person’s lungs. He knows because He already picked it all up and carried it for us, wept for how it holds us captive. He fastened the entire hideous mess to the Cross with the spikes that pierced His own flesh, wrestled it the whole way into the tomb and left it there so it couldn’t bind us any longer. The prophet Isaiah heralded the coming of a Savior “…He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)
So take courage, dear heart, on the days when you see clearly how far short you fall. Let humility rush you again to the foot of the Cross and beg forgiveness. Allow Mercy and Grace to heal your battle wounds, wash away your brokenness, and speak peace to your spirit. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:18-19)
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What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Romans 8:31-34)
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All this pain…
Beautiful Things, Gungor
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way;
I wonder if my life could really change, at all.
All this earth…
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?
You make beautiful things…
You make beautiful things out of the dust.