| Recommended Reading |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Living Thanksgiving: The Core of Who I am
“Let’s be honest, those who travel with Christ at some point, will travel through darkness. The system of creative order which holds our lives and souls together will fail.
Or at least, appears to do so.
The whole breaks into pieces, the certainty dissolves into a soupy mix of dirt and doubt, pain and questioning: grief. Upon the surface of this void the Spirit hovers (Gen 1:2) and as the Apostle Paul states in Romans 8:26, [He] plunges beneath the surface of our souls, searches them; the dreams, desires, grief’s and even broken fragments of faith, and presents them as groans to the Father.
Okay, so this may not be every Christian’s experience or at least they may not state it in such melodramatic terms, but this has been mine. For the prayers the Spirit groaned within me bound themselves to the promises of the Father and pulled from His chest, power. Power for healing. Power for life. Power for clarity. Power for hope. Power to love.
For many years I suffered from depression and at one point thought that I had been crippled by the disease to such an extent that I would not rise again. The shroud of death cloaked me; thought defined me. I was wrong.
6 years ago, I fell onto my knees during a worship service, and praised, and praised, and praised God for refusing to have His heart defined by my trouble. He was God and I would give Him glory. Though he slay me, I whispered through tears – His glory. In an instant, I was healed. As I meditated upon the glory of His creation, I praised Him for His infinite goodness and Almighty power shown in the endless expanse of the universe. Then God spoke. And what He formed within me was nothing less than a rock. The solidity of Jesus Christ. The rock has not moved. It remains at the core of who I am.”
-- A Believer in Prayer
Everett, WA
We must believe that God is as big as he really is. In his power, he can bring complete healing “in an instant,” or choose to take his sweet time. He is no less who he says he is should he choose to move one way instead of another. He is no less Creator if he does not choose to recreate life within us. He is no less Provider if he does not choose to give what we think we need. He is no less Comforter if we cannot, in our own despair, recognize his arms extended ‘round us. God’s eternal actions are not governed by our finite [mis]understanding of who he is and how he operates. He is governed by no one; He [simply] Is!
Instead, we must believe that God is big enough to deal with us, exactly how we need to be dealt with. The Holy Spirit will help bring us into sweet communion with the Creator if we allow him to; and through the power of our own prayers and the intercession of others, God will hear and he will act. With Christ as the very “core” of who we are, we can claim victory over depression and defeat; over worry and grief; over sickness and impairment; over sin and our flesh.
We will always win with Christ. Praise him for that!