Didn't think I had anything to write this morning 🤣.
It's funny how thoughts kind of cascade.
I found a weevil worm in my pantry today (quickly disposed of it!). It reminded me of the Psalm where David said he was a worm and not a man. He was feeling pretty badly about himself and the predicament he was in. The verse is often used in its prophetic form, looking forward to when Jesus was crucified as the worst of criminals. But right now, it reminded me of my beginnings as a Christian.
I was young. Spent most of my life being taught about the need to be God's or be lost to the horrors of the end of time. I knew the commandments. I knew what I needed to be for me to be his in deed - not just word. I knew just words were not enough. I was serious about wanting to be his. But somehow my humanness always messed up my vision of what I should be. I couldn't be enough for God to take me seriously as really wanting to be his, for him to take me on board. I constantly failed.
One day a youth leader preached a sermon on David and Bathsheba - a woman he saw bathing in the moonlight, wanted with a passion, and stole from her husband by sending him into the thick of battle to be killed. Now you couldn't do much worse than what David had done. He had indulged himself with lust and adultery and murder. Yet somehow, in the chapters after this story, God called David a man after his own heart. The sermon went on to reason that God knows the things we fail at, but he's more concerned with the direction of our hearts! He knows we will do things wrong, but if we are headed his way, we are his!
I suddenly understood that he loved me as I was - failures and all! And that was incredibly freeing!!!! Not that that meant he was good with me staying that way - I knew that. Walking with him is a constant reaching for the beautiful standard that is him! But I'm loved all the way!! And that love changes me!!! It's not something I do to myself!! Which again set me free - from the constant failures of reaching those perfect goals I always set myself. I realised my role was keeping my eyes on him and all the beauty he holds - and that awesome life and love changes me from the inside out - till my behaviours echo his!
That's not to say I don't fail anymore. There have been plenty of those along the way! But my eyes are firmly fixed on the one I choose to follow. And my heart will always be bonded to his.
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