My journal pages from January 2020 herald "hope in Jesus!"
I boldly proclaimed him as my "rock", my "firm foundation", my "all in all!"
Except that - evidently I was wrong. By mid-March, I had fallen very much apart, and it was not because Jesus shifted his focus or diminished his influence.
What crumbled beneath me were my predictable plans, my assumptions about control and convenience, and my intentionally established boundaries. All of that imploded, and so did I.
This is the sin that the pandemic exposed. My lip service to a sustaining faith in Christ alone was put to the test and I was left wanting. In all practicality my hope and faith had been firmly planted upon my own schemes and schedules.
And that's not the worst of it. Had quarantine not ambushed us all in the way that it did, it is possible that I could have lived foolishly blind to my own entrapment for YEARS. I shudder at the thought.
As time passes, the humiliation of oblivion and failure is slowly being replaced with willful humility.
Jesus sustains me as I sketch my plans lightly, committing to anticipate and receive the unexpected with gratitude.
God provides for me as I relinquish my desire for control and rebuke my idolatry toward convenience.
Spirit helps me look for healthy boundaries in order to increase my freedom to show love, not decrease my opportunity to do so.
And I leave the rest to rest.
Every quarter hour, I might falter in my mind, and have another opportunity to re-engage my heart to trust the Lord more.
"On Christ the solid rock I [try to not try so hard to] stand. All other ground is sinking sand."
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12
"Hallelujah! I have found Him
Whom my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies my longings,
Through His blood I now am saved."
