Some of us, we have these things we struggle against, these wrestling matches we find ourselves in that we didn't ask for but yet, they demand our devotion. Maybe once we stepped a little too far in the dark, maybe once we got tied up in some garbage, maybe sometimes it feels like the walls bend a little too far and we have traveled the distance in our heads and in our hearts to lands we shouldn't have made the pilgrimage for.
But yet we have.
And no matter how hard we try to push it down, to pretend its not happening, to put our strong faces on for; it is real. And the thing we try to hide, the thing that is breaking down on the inside, that cry that still goes unanswered; that is also real and man, does it weep.
So maybe we find ourselves surrendering to the stuff that numbs us. You know that thing that makes the questions quieter and makes the cry softer and makes the hunger duller. You know that thing, that thing you run to when you don't feel safe, that thing that pops up like walls around a fortified city.
And heck, it is so easy. Just run, just hide, just get numb. And it is like you do hear Him. You hear Him calling you into this place of vulnerability and freedom before Him, but hell does it scare you. He calls you out of the caves into a wide open field and all you're thinking is where the closest thing is that can cover you, hold you, hide you.
Where is the thing that will keep you safe?
But what we don't realize is that the very thing that we are hiding from is the very thing that will save us. Why do we feel a need to protect ourselves when He defines safe love? And I feel like it demands a question that must be asked:
What am I believing that has convinced me that He isn't safe?
There is not one of us reading this tonight that has not been hurt by a relationship and who has not been wounded when trust was violated. Maybe you were abandoned or betrayed. Maybe someone whispered stuff into your ears that wasn't true. Maybe someone just got up and left, cut you off, and said, "never mind."
And maybe in the midst of that pain and in the pauses of those tears, we made a vow. We made a vow to love less, open up less, trust less. We made a promise to ourselves to hide more, run more, shut down more. And without even realizing it, maybe we just threw God into the category of everyone else and closed the file.
I did this.
Somewhere in my heart, I still have been convinced that He is not one hundred percent safe for my heart. That He isn't happy. That maybe He is still angry. That He might leave, He might manipulate, He might not really love me.
In my head shines the altars of every truth that I have been told I am supposed to believe, but my heart processes them unwillingly, looking for the safe spots.
I have been in a journey, a beautiful, outrageous and an explosive journey of stumbling on the ocean of grace. Of stepping into sonship. Of seeing His heart. Of hearing the words come off of His lips firsthand that He loves me.
Of starting to actually believe some of it, deep, deep, deep down. And that's exactly what it has been, it has been a journey.
Of finding out how safe He really is. That I can fall back completely and He will never ever let me slip through His fingers. That if I lean in, I can hear His whispers and His songs over me every day that declare a different truth that what I am experiencing. That He is the safest place in all the world.
He is the safest place in all the world.
And those things I have used to numb myself because I thought they were safe, He tackles them and destroys them like a Papa who just wants to protect His girl. And as I sit on the sidelines and watch Him fight for me, my heart weeps. The deepest, the farthest, the smallest corners of this beating organ inside my chest, it weeps.
Because this Man. He is a whole other category. He is love defined. He smashes the boxes of every expectation I have in relationship and whispers that He is stronger. And while I am sitting on the edge of my bed counting the last time it has been since I have failed or fallen, He sits on the edge of my bed beside me and He sings,
"Oh how I love you…."
And the richness of His voice pours into the dry wells of my soul. Undone.
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