More than mere body posture…
August 17, 2010
The Lord has brought me to my knees in prayer. I find myself every morning and sometimes multiple times throughout the day just getting on my knees and seeking Him in prayer. Its like I can’t get off my knees these days. On my knees, I am strong. on my knees, I am safe. On my knees, I see Him for who He is. O how happy I am to be on my knees.
But being on my knees is more than just a mere body posture during prayer. It is the posture of my entire being, my heart, my soul, my body, my everything…yielded to Him. He has become so great in my eyes and, in light of seeing that greatness, I see how little and debased I really am. And yet I am reminded of His grace through Jesus that bids me still come. O, my heart cannot express enough thanks for such a grace, nor can my knees be bowed enough to Him.
You see, I say that I have walked with the Lord since I was 19 years old. And the night that I surrendered my heart to the Lord, I got on my knees. And I believe I truly surrendered. But the truth is that since that time, I can’t remember that many times that I went to the Lord on my knees. Yes, I would pray, but often standing, sitting, lying down, driving in my car, or wherever. It would be rare for me to get on my knees. Why? O that is such a loaded question, and I can now write pages as to why. But to be direct and straight to the point, the reason is simply that my heart has not been fully yielded to Him. I have still had so much pride that would cause me to still think something of myself. I was blinded to see the greatness and glory and wonder of God because I was still thinking something of myself and allowing the world, the flesh, and the devil to stroke my pathetic ego.
I mean, isn’t that what the world teaches? That self is important, right? Seriously, a person may go to a counselor because they are depressed or having some major difficulty, and the common answer given by the counselor is to love yourself more, treat yourself, don’t be so hard on yourself, etc. And this just feeds into our mixed up view of who we are, keeping us from throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God, realizing that we are NOTHING and that He is EVERYTHING. And yet, in our nothingness, Christ bids us come! How utterly amazing and wonderful is that? Wouldn’t that lift the troubled soul out of depression? Wouldn’t that break our egocentric pride that is the demise of so many of our woes? And wouldn’t that lead us to true wholeness and great contentment? Not a contentment drawn from our lowly selves, but rather a contentment drawn from the overwhelming goodness of God.
John the baptist was right when, upon speaking of seeing Jesus, stated, “I must decrease and He must increase.” O, how my heart has seen that same truth. How I am sick to see how much emphasis I have placed on my self over these last 20 years of walking with Him. I am sickened that I allowed the world, my flesh, and the hater of my soul to continuously stroke my ego so that I thought more highly of myself. This has caused nothing but pain and further separation from the lover of my soul. And I can only see that He truly is the lover of my soul when I first see that I AM NO GOOD. I have nothing good to offer. He reminds me, as well as all of us, that there is none righteous. That my righteousness (whatever comes from my self) is like a used tampon (the literal meaning of “filthy rag” found in Isaiah 64:6) I am doomed without Him. And yet, He chose to love me. He chose to reveal Himself to me. He chose to lift me up and seat me in heavenly places. He chose to make my heart His dwelling place. And all this has been done through Jesus. Can you see how good this news really is? O it is bad news, very bad news for the one that rejects the gift of God. But for the one that is brought low, the one that sees their lowly state in light of His glory and holiness, it is the most wondrous of all news. And seeing this leads us to do one thing – bow down.
And yes, I have seen these things lately. And I cannot do anything but bow down before Him, weeping with thankfulness that He would pave the way for me, a wretched sinner, to come into His holy presence by the blood of Jesus. O, how He loves me!!!! This is what indeed makes me whole!!! This is what lifts my heavy heart!!! This is what gives me the most healthy perspective of who I am. And so this is what fills my heart with joy. I am not filled with joy because of me, but rather I am filled with joy because of Him!!
And I have failed to see this all my life. I have failed to bow down because of my pride, because I was still placing a focus on my self. Hmmmn, how do I explain this? Ok, so the world, the flesh, and the devil all encourage me to focus on my self. And so, in a sense, without bowing down fully to the Lord, self starts to become my god. Instead of bowing my heart low before the Lord who is God and submitting my life FULLY to Him, I start thinking that self is important, therefore if self wants something, self is gonna get it. Along comes the devil with the perfect temptation, one that feeds into that whole notion of self being most important, and I am tempted to sin. And because my heart has not been fully bowed in the presence of the Lord, I give in to that sin because self is what I have been focused on. I have begun to worship at the altar of self rather than the altar of God. And even in my grief after giving into that sin, my grief is a worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Cor. 7:10) because I am only grieved because my self feels dirty, ashamed, guilty, etc. I am not so much grieved that I have just brought great offense and reproach against a holy God. So, even my “repentance” keeps me focused on self. And thus, the cycle of self worship continues…until…
I have become broken!!! Yes, brokenness is the ONLY way to rid myself from the altar of self. Actually, brokenness is just that – the breaking of the altar of self. And O how I thank the Lord that He has broken me. And with self broken, I see me more clearly. I see that I am nothing. I am not the cats meow. I am not the captain of my soul. I am not the mighty man of God. I.AM.NOTHING. I would be so lost if the story ended there. But O how thankful I am for the second part. HE.IS.EVERYTHING. he is everything good. He is everything strong. He is everything pure. He is everything peace. He is everything holy. He is everything joy. And He bids me come by the blood of Jesus that was poured out for my sin. And so in coming, I see Him and I am filled with Him. And my heart is overwhelmed with such joy. it is truly a joy unspeakable. I probably sound like I am babbling here because I can’t even fully describe what God has done.
All I can say is this: I cannot stop bowing down. And I have never felt more alive. And I take no credit. I give all the glory to Him. Where there was once darkness in my heart, God has said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. O Hallelujah!!!! What an amazing God!!!! – Cody
Sweetly Broken…
July 28, 2010
“At the cross you beckon me. You draw me closely to my knees, and I am lost for words, so lost in love, and I am sweetly broken, wholly surrendered.” – “Sweetly Broken” – Jeremy Riddle
And this is the state of my heart today. I am broken. But not a pitiful broken, but rather a brokenness that brings me joyfully to the foot of the cross where I can see love – perhaps for the first time in my life. Have you ever had that experience as a Christian, where you feel like you have been born again, again? Well, that is what the Lord is doing in my heart and words cannot even begin to describe it. This does not have anything to do with Susana and what we are going through as a result. This has to do with God doing some intense work in my heart to make me more like Him.
You see, there are parts of my own heart that are more cancerous than the tumors that currently invade Susana’s body. There has been sin there for the longest time that has never been truly dealt with, perhaps because it wasn’t God’s time, but I think more because I was not ready to deal with it myself. I had not been brought to the place of brokenness that is needed to see what I now see. But recently, the Lord has indeed brought me to that place. And He has broken me and continues to break me. It is like a blindfold has been lifted off my eyes and I can see things (some really ugly things) in my heart that I have never before seen.
As issues in my life have caused some of these ugly sinful patterns to come to the surface more and more, I was brought to a place where I just began crying out to the Lord and asking Him to break me open, asking Him to open up my eyes so that I can see the sin and ugliness that is keeping my heart from being wholly surrendered to Him, asking Him to reveal and expose those things that are causing ill effect in my marriage and other aspects of my life, primarily my relationship with Him. And it all started with a heart’s cry of desperation, realizing that only the Lord can effect change in my heart for His glory. And so, I cried out, “Lord, break me. Let me see my sin that has robbed You of Your glory, and then let me see Your glory so that I will truly repent and turn my heart to You in ALL ways. I am desperate!”
And The Lord, who hears the cry of His children, heard the heart’s cry of this poor child, and answered Him. Through His word and through my prayers, and by His grace, He broke my hardened heart wide open. And I wept, not like a baby, for a baby cries without really knowing why he or she is crying. No, I wept like a grown man, a man who hungers after God yet for the first time has seen such sin in his heart that has kept him from the very God he hungers after. Oh, I cannot express the grief that my heart experienced, and continues to experience. I have had times of falling to the floor, overcome with grief (yet at the same time overcome with the knowledge of His love and mercy) and just heaving sobs and wails and groans like I have never known before. I weep now even as I write this. He has answered my prayer! He has broken me, and continues to break me.
This, although painful, has been the sweetest thing to happen to me. The death is always painful. The letting go of something is always painful. The reality of sin and depravity is always painful. But the reality of Christ’s love that reaches such a depraved heart and has both power to forgive sin and love to restore a heart is indescribable! The bible is altogether true as it states, “It is the kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance.” Oh how I thank the Lord that He has granted me the gift of repentance. He has caused me to truly turn away from my sin. I cannot explain it all, but He has done it.
So, I have had many many days as of late where I just weep as I realize how my sin and wretched heart has kept me from receiving so much more of Him. And I also weep with the greatest thankfulness that He both loves me and is setting me free. I cannot contain my excitement. I just have to share it. It is like those blind people that Jesus healed that went in the temple walking, and leaping, and praising God. For I have been one of those blind men that has received the miracle of sight. What can I do, but walk and leap and praise the One, the ONLY One, who is able to open the eyes of the blind and bring a dead heart back to life.
Some may think that I am sharing too much by talking about God exposing sin in my life and breaking me of years of spiritual blindness…I don’t care. Just like David said when he danced naked after the ark was returned to Jerusalem, “I will be even more undignified than this!” So, I will not go dancing down the street naked, but I will show the nakedness of my soul that has been touched by my Savior, for I have nothing to hide. He has redeemed me and is setting me free. I cannot stay silent.
I have been consumed these days by thoughts of Him. I cannot put the bible down. I cannot stop writing in my journal. I cannot stop just wanting to give Him glory and honor in everything that I do. I have lived 38 years of my life so far. I only pray that He gives me at least 39 more years so that I can live more than half of my life with this new found love and joy that I have found in my Savior. I have lived 8 years of marriage where I have been unable to give my whole heart to a woman that I really love. I only pray that these 8 years are a tiny fraction of the years of marriage left where I can give my wife my entire heart and see the Lord glorified in our midst every single day.
As I was thinking about these things the other day, I said, “Lord, You have indeed answered my prayer asking You to break me open and reveal my sin so that I would see it clearly. But now I want You to answer my prayer of showing me Your glory.” And as soon as I said this, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “I have shown You my glory by exposing the depravity of your heart and then covering it with my love.” Oh, how my heart shouted for joy when I saw this to be true. What can be more glorious than a heart that has been revealed to be full of such sin and yet the love of Christ that covers the sin of such a wicked heart? Yes, mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord.