It’s time for some real talk here.
I’m done.
I’m done telling God that He can only do things I understand, that He can only move in ways I’ve seen Him move before, that He can only tell me things that I’ve already been taught.
Am I nervous? Yes. I’m stepping out into uncharted territory here, into open waters swirling with a God I’m no longer putting into my cliche little “box.” I’m praying big prayers and asking God to show me aspects of Himself I don’t recognize and can’t wrap my head around. And I know He’s going to answer; the question is, how will I respond?
The last time I asked God for this, I ran around for three days like a chicken with its head cut off, waving my hands and crying, “I don’t understand!” Then I basically said, “never mind, thanks but no thanks, You’re cool and all but that didn’t make sense, so I’m going to go back and sit on my little molehill of the stuff I get rather than try to climb this mountain of the You I don’t understand.” Bottom line: I turned around and ran away.
See, I’m a very intellectual person. I love to study the Bible in detail, picking apart each verse and plumbing each turn of phrase for the depths of its meaning. The Lord has fully revealed Himself in Scripture, and I don’t want to stray from a relationship with God rooted on theology, doctrine and the truths He’s established in His Word to one based instead on a flimsy foundation of feelings, emotions and experiences. In the past, fear of inadvertently wandering from those truths has kept me from engaging and accepting anything of God that I haven’t already been taught, that I can’t comprehend, that flat-out doesn’t make sense.
So what’s changed? Why aren’t I afraid now?
God spent my month in Bolivia teaching me about this incredible, beautiful thing called grace. It’s at the heart of the gospel, that Jesus died to save us from our sins and open the door for a relationship with God that doesn’t require us to earn it at all. It’s at the center of how God relates to His children, whom He loves more deeply than we can imagine. It’s a vital concept that I’d somehow spent a long time missing.
Grace tells this insecure child that the Lord loves me for exactly who I am.
Grace tells this self-righteous, legalistic, law-abiding citizen that I don’t have to add to or earn my relationship with Jesus by following any rules.
Grace tells this high-achieving perfectionist who hates to be wrong that it’s okay if I’m not always right.
And grace tells this intellectual girl, fearful of anything I don’t understand, clinging to knowledge so tightly that my knuckles have turned white, that the Lord is infinitely greater than I could ever wrap my head around. And if, in exploring experiencing His greatness in ways I never have before, I inadvertently wander from His solid foundation of truth, it’s okay. There’s grace for that too.
In the past, I’ve been so petrified of straying from what I already know to be true that I haven’t let the Lord reveal to me any of His fullness that I don’t understand. I’ve mistakenly believed that my relationship with Jesus is predicated on me self-correcting and holding only to what I know and can recognize, trusting only anything I can immediately connect to a Bible reference, fearing that if I step out on a limb and trust an experiential, emotional side of God, I’ll fall away completely into foundationless spirituality and miss Him.
In all this, I’ve completely missed grace: I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to be right all the time. It’s okay to take chances, make mistakes, get messy. And if sometimes I do mess up and head off in the wrong direction, Jesus will catch me and bring me back. My relationship with Him is based on Him, not me, and He’s never letting go.
Furthermore, God is all about faith. He loves when His children choose to trust Him and act in faith, even if we can’t see or understand what He’s doing. I can cower on my little molehill of knowledge all I want, but my Father smiles to see me step out in faith into the unknown, relying only on Him to lead me. By limiting God to what I understand, I’m rejecting His grace and demonstrating a lack of faith in Him.
This is cool and all, Alice, but where’s this coming from? What in the world are you talking about?
Let’s just say that in the eight weeks we’ve been on the Race, J Squad has been introduced to a lot of the spiritual realm. In Haiti, several teams encountered spiritual warfare head-on. In Bolivia, our squad had a twelve hour night of prayer, experiencing healing both physically and spiritually. I have no doubt that the Lord’s work will continue as powerfully among us in Peru. God is on the move, and we’re stepping into our spiritual gifts and expecting Him to continue to do incredible things in and through us this year. This is all new to me, and it’s requiring new levels of trust and faith. But I am done telling God He can only be what I already know, what I can understand. I’m jumping onboard wholeheartedly, seeking His fullness without reservation or hesitation.
So what’s next? Well, I’m not going to stop delving deep into the Bible. Far from it: in tandem with this newfound discovery of the spiritual mysteries of the Lord, God’s fueling a fire in my soul for His Word. He’s placed a burning desire in my heart to hear Him speak, and I’m pursuing Him hardcore in the Bible. His Word both reveals unknown mysteries and grounds me in the essentials of the gospel, and everything I experience through any other avenue must line up with what He’s already revealed in Scripture. My love of knowledge and of studying the Bible was never the problem; the issue was my fear of the unknown, my outright rejection of anything of God I couldn’t rationalize and understand.
At the same time, I’m praying big prayers for God to move in ways I’ve never known before and rock my world with more of Him than I’ve ever experienced. And this time, when He answers, I’m going to respond in faith rather than fear. I’m going to accept Christ’s grace instead of pressuring myself to get everything right the first time. I’m going to trust God when He tells me to trust Him rather than requiring Him to explain everything before I accept it.
Because I know He’s going to answer. And this time, I’m diving in.
*image courtesy of Productive Pig Paperworks, productivepig.blogspot.com
