FAITHFUL TODAY

I read a Philip Yancy book last week. As I read it, I found myself wondering what had happened. There was a disconnect between what he was writing and the marital unfaithfulness that he recently confessed to. Yet another example of the moral failure of a leader of the faith. How did he go from having such profound insights on our disappointments with God to an eight-year sexual relationship with someone other than his wife?

As I reflected on that question, I found myself thinking back to my own life.

When I was in my 20s, I was visiting a church and heard the pastor (who was probably in his 50s at the time) talk about wanting to remain faithful to the Lord to the end. What struck me was that he didn't assume this was a given. It was the first time I realized that "older" people can turn their backs on what they know to be true. Shortly after that sermon, we took our family and headed to South Asia—full of passion and trusting that the Lord was going to do incredible things.

In South Asia life got hard, and I started questioning who God was. In my Scripture reading, I kept coming across references to God being my rock, but at the time it felt like this "rock" was something hard and unyielding, and the waves of life were brutally bashing me against it. I was being tossed to and fro, and I wanted something soft and comforting.  Why would He keep telling me He was a solid, immovable mass protruding from the ground?  As I packed up a very sick husband and four young kids to leave the country we thought we had been called to for life, I began to wonder if God really cared about me.

Returning to the US didn’t bring the hoped-for relief.  In many ways, things just kept getting harder.  Approaching a stoplight one day in my effort to complete an unending list of to-dos, I told God in desperation that life was too hard. I couldn't keep going. It was as though He was a million miles away, with His back turned and His fingers in His ears. And if He wasn't listening, why was I speaking? This was the point of decision that began a year-and-a-half long journey through the darkness. I was no longer on speaking terms with God.

What led to my conclusion that God didn't care? How did I go from being sold out for Jesus to not believing that He was anywhere near? How did Philip Yancy go from writing truths about who God is to harboring a secret sin that would eventually disqualify him from ministry? Looking at the "why" and the "how" behind these stories can be helpful in many ways, but that will be for another time.

The story of my return to the Lord is also for another time. But what is for today is that today, I choose Jesus.  And every day, I need to choose Jesus.

My salvation is secure in Him, but every day I'm learning to depend on Him. He is the only one who can keep my feet from stumbling. He is the solid, immovable Rock on which I stand.  He loves me more deeply than I could ever understand, and He wants me to stay with Him as I walk through each day. He wants to hear my hurts, my frustrations, and my joys.  I know—have experienced—what it is to walk away. And I know, and have experienced, His deep forgiveness when I came limping back to Him.

I also know what I am capable of - turning from a God who cares.

Every day, my delight needs to be in the law of the Lord. Every day, I need to come before Him, knowing that I desperately need Him to show me the straight path. Every day I need to come to the Living Water, for when I'm planted by Him, my leaves won't wither, and His fruit will ripen in its season.

Jesus, every day I desperately need You.