Helplessness

John 21:17 - "He asked him the third time, 'Simon, son of John, do you love Me?'  Peter was grieved that He asked him the third time, 'Do you love Me?'  He said, 'Lord, You know everything! You know that I love You.' 'Feed My sheep,' Jesus said."

I have to be honest, there are times that my life feels like a runaway train headed down a mountain, with no brakes, with a curve is straight ahead, and a thousand foot drop into a deep chasm.  Have you ever felt that way...helpless?  I am currently fighting that battle right now.  There are several areas in my life that are beyond my control, and there is nothing I can do to fix any of them.  I am literally at a point of total reliance on God. Now, being in a place of total reliance is great on one hand, because God has ample opportunity to work things out in a way where He receives the most glory.  However, personally, it is the one of the hardest things to live out.

I have been using Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" during my quiet time that I spend with the Lord.  Earlier this week, I read a passage called "The Piercing Question."  In it, Chambers was referencing Jesus' restoration of Peter in John 21.  Chambers made the following point:

Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level.

Why is this important?  I'm glad you asked.  If we are to truly follow after Christ the way He intends for us to, then we are going to have to face some of these same questions.  He is asking us these questions in order for us to surrender, and, when we do, it will be some of the most intense pain you will ever feel.  You begin to realize how much you have allowed the enemy to dull your senses.  At this point you have 2 choices, you can give in let God finish the work He started in you.  The other choice is to fight against Him tooth and nail until, eventually, God has worn you down to a place where you have no other choice but to surrender (kind of like Jonah).   The good news is that the moment we feel that intense pain, God is able to instill and reveal His truth.  When we learn this kind of lesson, just like Peter, it will be one we will never forget.  Look how God used Peter after this moment of restoration.  He was the cornerstone on which God was to build His church.

Helplessness is the feeling you get when you are in the middle of this process.  It is one of the enemy's tactics he uses to try and deter or distract us from the bigger truth, which is that God is working and moving in our lives.  The journey we have to go on in order to reach this level of brokenness is a painful one.  My buddy, Jason, heard a great quote that states, "Faith preaches easy but walks hard."  My tendency is to try and speed up this process or try and justify a decision and ask for God's blessing after the fact.  The reality is, God's timing is never my timing.  Through this process, God is trying to instill in us the importance of patience.  The phrase from the song "The Lord Our God" keeps coming to mind..."we won't move without You, we won't move without You, You're the light of all and all that we need."  The way we defeat helplessness is total reliance on and brokenness before the One True God.  We can't move without Him.

The bottom line is this...do we truly desire to chase after God and make Him our heart's only devotion?  If so, there is going to be a lot of death in our life.  We will die to our pride and have it replaced with God's love and humility.  We will die to our lust for things and have those replaced with a desire to give to those in need and show mercy to those who don't necessarily deserve it.  We will also die to our desires, and they will be replaced with a yearning for God's will to be done in our lives.  Those are just a few areas that will have to be surrendered.  So, there I am in a train headed down the mountain with no brakes and a curve ahead, and all I can hear God say is, "Give it a little more gas."  Death is a beautiful thing isn't it!  Who wants to journey with me?

Be God's!