What am I, but dust?
One of my favorite worship songs has a line that, in particular, stands out to me more than others. Relating to this, the lens that I see life through has done anything but the stay the same as I’ve grown in this walk with Christ. C.S. Lewis compares it to the sun when he says “I believe in the sun not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else.” This is what most theologians would describe as applying a worldview, worldview being a lens that one sees life through whether their worldview is evolutionism or naturalism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity; therefore taking this worldview into to the way that we see life and also, in other words, letting this worldview answer the deeper questions of life. As we grow older and mature, our worldview begins to be suppressed or confronted and if confronted honestly, it goes on to influence other areas of our lives with the implications it has slowly but surely. This is how I have seen it reflected in my life when it comes to the way I handle my relationships, money, priorities, and all other aspects of my life. For example, first, it was my lifestyle, then relationships, then priorities, then money, and so on.
Before I had confronted myself with what the implications of true belief in God we’re (or before accepting this worldview), I lived my life aside from these implications so as to do what pleased myself, but only as I stayed within the weight of what my conscience would allow for; regarding, what the Bible would call, ‘evil desires’ or ‘sins’ in my life. (I believe these sins or evil desires are best described as a violation of the purpose for which all was created.) We see the conscience, otherwise known as our moral compass, at different levels in each individual and at a level that is conditioned to, oftentimes, the lives and lifestyles of those nearest to us or the external influences such as, for a small example, social media that we personally allow. I find the conscience beautifully woven into mankind as evidence of something more than the natural framework without God claims to and, further than that, something meant to steer us towards true good, which Jesus says in the gospels that’s no one is truly good but God and so that true good, which is God. My point of writing on this today is one of the deepest, most profound, and impactful of revelations that I’ve experienced today as I sit in a freezing room with no heat, in the cold weather of a city of 10,000 that seems to be won over by anything but God in Southern Albania, listening to a worship song that leaves just a couple lines echoing in my head.
“I reach out, and you find me in the dust;
they say no amount of untruth can separate us.”
This revelation comes at where our worldview, touched on earlier, and my brain come to another realization of an area in my life that can answer to God, and today to the love of God. It seems awkward to say the love of God, since ‘God is love’, but it must be a term that makes more sense to us so that we can separate the two into something we can understand; being God and love. Following that, the love of God is something that is unfathomable to our minds in a way that we can only come to understand more of this as we pursue to understand more and more throughout our lives, similar to how we can study something our entire lives yet still fall short of the full understanding. The revelations and deeper understandings of His love comes through realizations through Creation, through Christ, and through His small yet impactful and transformative work that He does within the Christian over time. One thing I’ve learned is that I can only recognize the growth I’ve had in any area(s) of my life if I look back, not to last week, but to a longer period of time for evaluation of how much I’ve grown, to which I find my self surprised and overtaken at the work God had done in my life. My point from saying all of this is that one of those small realizations has been one of the most impactful for me and one that I only realized today. That realization is this and bear with me to the point that comes from it: I, meaning my being, am nothing but the dust that we’ve come from; I am unworthy of all that I’ve been given; I in no way am I ‘good’ enough to be deserving of God’s love. These truths bear a weight that if we allow ourselves to feel, can be redeemed into something better than had we not felt them. And so this brings me back to the lyrics that I sang this morning. One reality of my walk with God is that I reach out to God but find that it’s actually Him that finds me in the dust (again I am but dust). And nothing can separate me from Him. But the deepest and the most profound piece of this revelation comes with the realizing that with me being dust, unworthy of Him, and not close to good enough comes the unfathomable truth that God loves this unworthy, unrighteous, and helpless person who’s best compared to filthy rags and in human terms, unloveable. He deems out from what I was into someone loved, worthy, and white as snow. It’s until I let myself feel this reality, which I previously had not, that I am able to realize how deep, how wide, how high, and how long is the love of Christ that He holds for me and for you and for us all. And once this love has been felt, in redemption of the feelings of unlove and unworthiness, I’m able to go on with the confident proclamation that I am loved by Christ, redeemed by His blood, and that though this world and the desires of this world will pass away, I am unworthy yet a proud possesser of the free gift of eternal life which comes through receiving Christ’s blood as Savior and allowing Him to take the place of God. I no longer live as though I am the god and controller of my life, but I live with God in that role as the one who designed life for a purpose and gives me a purpose that I did not have apart from Him and His love. And with Him as God in my life comes with the implications that bring love, peace, and promises that carry me through this life of trials and triumphs until I am reunited with true love. For “God is Love.” As seen in the sparkle of a diamond, I believe that through God’s eyes I am truly seen as a shine of life, among others, in the dust.
So,
What am I, but dust?
I am dust, loved by God.
