Skip to main content

Dear God

Dear God,


I can’t remember the last time my heart was in such shambles. Perhaps it has never been in quite as pathetic a state as it is right now. I can reflect on a season that seemed like it would never end in which I felt unashamed to stand confidently before you. Looking back, I wonder if it was in my power that I stood, neglecting to put my reliance completely on you. Perhaps my pride got the best of me, as it so often does, and I blinded myself to reality.


Regardless of how it happened, I sit here on the brink of collapse at the edge of despair. I see how quickly a little leaven leavens the whole loaf and how quickly one small justification or compromise threatens to lead to complete disarray.


But your Word trumpets through my soul not allowing me to give in to despair. You remind me as tears fall down my face that You are only being faithful to answer the prayers that I have continued to bring to Your throne. They are prayers for humility, for the ability to love myself, and for the ability to extend grace to myself and to others. Even in the midst of this self-induced trial, You are faithful to work in my life and answer my prayers.


So I cry out, asking not for the hurt to subside, but for your Name to be exalted through my hurt. Lord, I have no good apart from You, and my only hope is to abide in You. Show me thy power and graciously allow me to live in and by it.


Though my flesh and my heart may fail, You are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. It is by this truth that I rejoice and sing with the heavens, “Worthy is the Lamb!”


Your bond-slave,
Matt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Convicting And Compelling Gospel

Which adjective in the title more closely aligns with your predisposed way of thinking about and speaking the gospel to yourself and others?   Are you more likely to present a gospel that is heavy on the convicting realities of sin, righteousness and judgment?   Or do you find yourself more readily appealing to the benefits of following Jesus?   If you think about it, neither adjective fully encapsulates the message of Jesus.   It’s right to compel people using the promises of God and the joy filled benefits of a life submitted to Jesus.   But it’s also right to warn of the consequences of rejecting Him.   Since we’re all naturally inclined to emphasize one, we need to allow the other to constrain us, to balance us from taking our natural disposition to the extreme, which may confuse the gospel and the Jesus we wish to present.   Let me attempt to illustrate one example of an unconstrained leaning toward each in turn.   A compelling gospel that is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Life Update: A Growing Confidence

    It’s been awhile since we updated everyone on things, and this seems like a particularly pivotal time to do so.   June 14th is my last day of service as associate pastor of Christ The King Church, Kenosha, WI, where I’ve been privileged to serve for the past three years on staff, and where, more importantly, Elyse and I have been built up into Jesus for the past 7 years.   Our relationships and experiences at Christ The King have been instrumental in both our personal sanctification and in our sense of call toward church planting, specifically a multiethnic church, and ministering to the poor and marginalized.   I’ve become a little bit better at preaching, a little bit better at leading, and I hope both spring from being a little bit better learner of Jesus, my King.   I’m fully aware of my deficiencies as His student, but nonetheless there is an unwavering commitment to keep at it since where else could I go to find the words of eternal life? ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Off-The-Charts Good Providence Of God

What do Joseph, Jonah, Paul, Naomi, David, and Job have in common?   Besides all of these folks’ lives being recorded for us in Scripture, they also all suffered serious trials for God’s good purposes.   Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery.   Jonah got a sunburn (it was worse than it sounds!).   Paul was shipwrecked, bitten by a viper, stoned, beaten.   David was chased by a spear-chuckin’ king for years.   Job lost all of his wealth and all of his children.   Naomi lost her husband and two sons from famine. Amazing things resulted from many of these situations.   Joseph saved God’s people from famine when he rose from a slave to second in command in Egypt.   Paul planted who knows how many churches and saved countless people after evangelizing the entire known world in the first century.   Naomi’s lineage eventually brings us Jesus the Savior.   Job’s sufferings shamed satan by showcasing why a man would worship God despit...
Post a Comment
Read more