Our pursuit of God is successful just because he is forever seeking to manifest himself to us.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~ The best news ever in Ephesians 2
Oh beloved, it is true. Some of us have run really hard in the wrong direction. The list of our failures is beyond comprehension.
The pain we have caused.
The pain we have felt.
The doubts that have plagued us.
The worries we have held on to.
The flesh we have fed,
The bitterness we have fostered.
The children we have hurt.
The wages we have withheld.
The poor we have ignored.
The fear we have feasted on.
The damnable pride which we allowed to keep us from you.
We were doomed. And we knew it. And we didn’t care. We ran away from Him even faster as any thought of repentance began to present itself to us. Harder and harder we flung ourselves toward the abyss.
But G_d.
Oh my. Can we even begin to sense what is happening here? Can we even begin to wrap our spirits around what is being said in the two words: “But G_d”? The Infinite One has looked in on our rebellion, and quelled it with the only weapon able to do so. He has reached out with His Great Love (read His very Self) and done the impossible. He has made our:
Pain into freedom and praise.
Doubts into determined delight.
Worries into ravished wonder.
Flesh into our slave and freed us from its bondage.
Bitterness into a beautiful embrace.
Violence into victorious calm that heals others.
Selfishness into a satisfying self-less-ness.
Insensitivity into interest and compassion.
Fear into a calm assurance of His fantastic Love for us.
Pride into a powerless voice we now laugh at.
And this is only the beginning. For now, we seem to almost be able to sense the enormity of the change He has freely wrought in us. And we see the things He is having us do in this life to prepare us for the next. But don’t miss the next part of the passage.
In the coming ages (yeah, that’s infinitely plural)…
In these coming ages is where this infinitely Good, and infinitely Loving G_d will begin to take the cover off the mysteries of our Faith. And somewhere in depth of an eternity of eternities we will begin to see the center of His heart and His great Love and kindness towards us. It will take us forever to find it.
And it will happen.
Perhaps tonight is your night beloved. Stop running. The sweet Sound you hear over your shoulder is relentless, and you can only delay His victory. Yet upon being defeated, as you melt into His amazing embrace, your only regret will be how hard you ran away .
Oh, this fool of a writer ran so hard. And i am so glad He caught me!
A saint’s life is in the hands of God as a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see; he stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says: “I cannot stand any more.” But God does not heed; he goes on stretching until his purpose is in sight, then he lets fly. We are here for God’s designs, not for our own.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
