Sometimes, we just forget

As I sat there listening intently to the story being shared, my mind kept wandering through my own memories about how certain things had happened.  I was pretty young at the time, maybe 14 or 15, so naturally, I questioned my own experience.  The person telling the story was much older, at least in their 20's, so I figured they must know what they were talking about.  This led to me spending a great deal of time making a pest of myself over the next 15-20 years, asking questions like a grand inquisitor of everyone I met who even remotely had a story about knowing the Lord.

Many of the people I talked to had their own drastically different stories to tell, but they all had a similarity in their outcome! 

All were similarly along these lines:

The person was going along living their lives making their mistakes.  Some were drinking, some doing drugs while others were promiscuous in their sexual behaviors and some were criminals of one degree or another.  Then the Lord intervened in their circumstances in some ordinary or some extraordinary way, either through other people or a situation and suddenly their whole lives changed dramatically!  They began to follow Jesus. And they were doing just fine!  Life was humming along.  They never spoke of continuing struggle or of discovering new flaws in themselves.  

At first, I began to think everyone else experienced a genuine transformation through Christ, but that I myself must not truly be saved.  
They'd had a VOILA' moment and were forever changed, but I must not have genuinely had such a moment! Those stories were so different from mine!  I was struggling and stumbling about and feeling lost, dazed and mostly confused about mostly everything.  

Did I really know the Lord at all?  Even some folks that I had shared Jesus with seemed to have transfigured overnight into superChristians with no further problems, no past haunting them and just sunshine and rainbows up ahead.

It took me a lot of years and even more deep soul searching to recognize that most folks have a tendency to cover up their doubt.  They don't talk openly about the fears that nag at them.  They aren't transparent about the ongoing process of sanctification in their lives.  That's really sad, that we feel we need to hide from each other for fear of being rejected, rather than accepting one another and encouraging one another, building one another up as we are instructed by Gods word to do. 

The sanctification process seemed all too obvious in my life.  It seemed like the moment I'd licked one "fault" 7 others were happy enough to rear there heads and make themselves - VERY PUBLICLY - known!

I always seemed to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people in just precisely the wrong way!

No matter how loving or kind my intentions, my actual words and actions often appeared anything but loving or kind!

I might be smiling but my own heart knew the dark and wicked thoughts it was really thinking!

Instead of blessed, I was HAUNTED by Gods Word! 

"Be holy as I am holy."

God and I both knew well enough there was absolutely positively without doubt no chance of that ever happening in my flesh.

Then I read I Peter.  

I Peter 1: 13 - 16 13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Mt heart was convicted but in my flesh, there was no deep and lasting change. I still stumbled and struggled in spite of my very best intentions.

I drew some small comfort from 

I John 3:20 "If our heart condemns us God is greater than our heart, and knows all things."

But still I stumbled, still I felt condemned.  Then I read I Peter again and again and again, but now, having read through the Bible enough, I had begun to put it all together and it all began to make a bit of sense.

LET MY HOPE REST FULLY ON THE GRACE 

REVEALED BY JESUS THE CHRIST!

There was my answer - HOPE!  Not that I would attain any good thing on my own through my own striving and force of will, but that my hope must rest; REST! peaceful and secure, in Jesus and all that He did and accomplished on the Cross for me!

I have learned enough to have learned that in this flesh while I live in this sinful fallen world, I will never attain holiness.  The appearance of such perfect holiness in others is exactly that - only an appearance.  For even when I get it "right" in the flesh, it is only because of the work Jesus accomplished on the Cross, and God alone truly knows and understands my heart.  

And when I get it "wrong" in the flesh, I rest in the grace Jesus revealed by His sacrifice on the Cross.

Even though that HOLINESS is not a work I can accomplish in my flesh, it doesn't mean I should stop striving for it.  That doesn't mean I should accept me as I am and call it good enough.

If there is one thing I am absolutely certain of, it is that I will never be "good enough" in and of myself, but I have been made PERFECT by Gods grace.

And I can surely be blessed in some satisfaction along the way by trying.  Failing.  Picking up and trying again.  Trying this other way.  Praying.  Trying again.  Working at it.  Had a great minute there!  Grinning, bearing it, and STILL TRYING.

I'd like to think I'll be trying when Christ returns to take me home.  Then when the Father asks me "What did you do with all I gave you?"  I can honestly answer Him "I never quite got it, but I never stopped trying.  THANK YOU for sending Jesus to rescue me!"

Check out the Daily Reading Schedule.  These last few weeks, the Psalms have been speaking volumes about growing.  About the great God who created us.  About the human experience.  BE ENCOURAGED, for Gods grace is extended to all who call on the Name of Jesus!