Faith

At my core I am a two year old in need of some refining; specifically in the area of wanting to get and have my way.

And I know this because I have had a nose dive into depression this week.

And in unraveling the complexities of the why, the really why, and the what’s really going on I have come to some conclusions.

1. I am hiding under the hollow shell of something that use to be but is long gone and refined.

Part of our challenge as christians is taking our identity in Christ seriously and really believing it. Because sin and how sinful we are is at the core of our new birth, it becomes very difficult to really take Christ serious when it comes to our identity in Him as his sons and daughters.

The truth is though He takes this issue very seriously He mandates in scripture that we believe we are who he says we are. It hinders Him and His glorious work when we don’t.

The beauty and oftentimes scapegoat of sanctification though is that God continually works despite us; he hollows out the things we cling to in our identity til the point we can begin to believe them where he finally is able to in essence ninja kick our version of identity, smash it and see it fall to pieces on the floor dealing it its final blow...and we move on to the next two year old tendency needing some reworking.

And when I look upon my life all the recent developments realizations and perspectives I am coming to terms with accepting that this life is this long term faith building exercise. That is real life and proper sanctification as God eagerly awaits the awakening of His sons and daughters.

2. New York City and my career/work and all things are very much tied into this. More intricately than I can articulate.

It’s taken me a long while to actually be able to articulate these complex thoughts. It took me about 4 days in the mountains of stilling life to a point of prayer journaling and reading alone to come to terms with the fact that NYC was my idea. And my idea was about to fail. I had to understand,I had to understand New York was my idea. And my idea died monday night.

I do not believe New york city died when I received that email on Monday letting me know that 3 big projects a firm was counting on for my hire didn’t come through. But my idea of how New York timing life etc. would all work out died.

I am walking in the reality of God’s providence in the in between. And I have to remember that every place is an opportunity to exercise faith and see what it brings.

God brought me to a breaking point a few days before that email where my two year old tendencies came out full force. It led me into what would normally have been a nose dive into depression if I really struggled with that still...I woke up joyful a day ago. I have simply been a two year old trying to be depressed and apathetic and unmoved to the point where God would magically do something my way.

God isn’t like that though.

I like J.I. Packer’s thought on the subject:

“What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God for his Father…Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption…The truth of our adoption gives us the deepest insights the New Testament affords into the greatness of God’s love. Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be – adoption through propitiation.”

“You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”

I am a two year old. And God is a good father. But if I don’t believe Him to be that, then I simply will rot away the blessing of what Christ has for me in every moment.

And therefore I choose to believe.

JG