“So love Me or hate Me,
Chris Renzema, How To Be Yours
I’m not going anywhere.
Leave Me or take Me,
You still bare My signature.
Know Me or not,
Seen or forgot,
I’m not walking out on you.”
I still act like an orphan, I guess. I do. I act like God isn’t worthy of trust, like He doesn’t want the best for me as His child. It is hard for me to fathom because it seems as if my life is out of control. Which begs the question, whose control is my life in? Am I grabbing it and holding on so tight that I’m stuck? The unknown is too frightening of a thing to think about.
Yet somehow, I’ve become comfortable with my uncomfortable life. How does that even make sense? I don’t have the 9-5. I don’t have the regular, set hours. In fact, I have the wildest day-to-day compared to everyone around me, who knows when they go to work and when they are off, 365 days a year, unlike me, who gets to know less than a week out. Still, I’ve become comfortable. I don’t want to take any new risks because that would mean jeopardizing what I already kind of have control over.
I don’t want to take a risk and fail. I’ve already been forced to take so many risks in life already. Is an ordinary, simple life too much to ask for? Is it not what I deserve after all I’ve been through?
What I deserve? What a ridiculous thing to say. What do I deserve?
I’m a sinner. I deserve death. I’ve chosen to place my trust in everything but God. Why would He do anything for me now that I’ve rejected Him and His ways? Why can’t I trust in His provision when it is so obvious and evident throughout history, especially my own life? His fingerprints are everywhere!
No wonder I’m stuck. No wonder winter won’t end.
My head is spinning. My thinking is askew. What I’m believing is so wrong. But even as God holds me as I cry on the floor, I struggle to know how to be His.
“Child, I’m not going anywhere. No matter how hurt or confused you might feel, you still bare my signature. I’m not walking out on you.”
Why have I doubted Your goodness? Why have I lost sight of all that He has already done? He didn’t give up on His people throughout time, even when they wanted nothing to do with Him. He didn’t give up on me, even when I walked out on Him. But I’m terrified.
Being exposed is scary. It feels like danger encroaches on every side. At the same time, risk brings potential for more. For more than familiarity, something grandiose and arresting. Something life-altering and wonderful. Imagine the places you could go when you get back up and step into daunting, uncharted territory.
He’s not done with you.
Nothing I can do will ever make me good enough to deserve anything. I doubt, cry, scream, question, or condemn myself to death.
“Child, it’s time to sing a new song, to allow me to tend the soil, to reach toward the light because death is gone with the winter.”
It’s time for the shift of my perceived source of life back to You. The truth is the death of Jesus is sufficient proof of the trustworthiness of the heart of God. I have no reason to doubt, fear or cower. No reason to hide because the Cross ultimately says it all: I am free and forgiven. I am adopted. I am loved.
No matter the things I’ve done, no matter the things that have happened to me, the future isn’t controlled or dictated by those things. It is dictated by the Creator of everything and whatever He wants, He will do.
“I’m not walking out on you.”
It’s time to stop singing the song of defeat. It’s time to come back to life. Awake my soul for death is dead and gone. What I have proclaimed dead, God has pulled out of the grave. It’s time to be renewed, to drink of fresh, living water.
Prodigal, come home.
Your God who is rich in mercy, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. For it is by grace you have been saved.
I agree with you. A lot of people talk like control is always a bad thing. I have to always ask myself, when I want to be in control, for whose benefit is it? If its for my own benefit for me to stay in control, then inevitably it ends up to no good. But if I strive to be in control for God’s purposes, then I can rest assured its good. But of course it is implicit that I’m listening to God.
I want to mention too that God never looks at your as an orphan, He looks at you as an adopted woman of God. And I always look at you as my daughter too. 🙂