5/16/2012

Reflection on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10:

  Lord, help me be content in your sufficient grace. You provide everything that I will ever need. Everything in my life that is not of you may meet a desire, but not a need. I can do without all of them, but I cannot for a moment do without you. You are perfect in every way, and you will never abandon or desert me. Your love will watch over me and provide for me, and my soul needs to learn to rest in you, to rest in your sufficient grace. You are love and mercy and wonder and praise, and I need to set down all the things that I am carrying that obscure my vision of your holy throne. I am unworthy, but you have the final word on that, and it is spoken on the cross, and it carries through three days of death into new life that springs forth from the empty tomb. 

  In you, there is life, but it only comes from you—I cannot provide it, secure it or even define it outside of you. I often am caught trying to secure it on my own, believing in my foolish pride that such a thing is possible, or perhaps it is merely my weak faith that believes that I must do what you might not, as though I might stumble and fall unless I provide for myself a way forward. I am a foolish sinner, Lord, and in the depths of my heart I know that life alone comes from you, that my own stupid attempts to grasp the reins of life from you will ultimately fail. All that surrounds me gives testimony to this—my life has been in ruins when I lived with no knowledge of you.

  Like the Judges, I did what was right in my own eyes. Also, like the Judges, you allowed me to suffer the consequences of my stupid & selfish decisions. Now, though, I see clearly, or at least less obscured, and recognize the sin at the root of so many of my decisions. I want to be independent, to be recognized for my own wisdom and pride, and I don't rest in your sufficient grace. I work, I work, I work, I work and I work some more, believing that the harder I work the more you will love me, the more you will approve of me, the higher I will rise in your kingdom. All of this is selfish, Lord, and you and I both know that. The difference is you want to destroy it, while I secretly want to hold onto it, thinking that the world will reward me with riches and honor for what you have given me. I want that, Lord, and I don't know how to let it go. I don't really want to let it go, if we're going to be honest, and honesty is probably the best policy with you, since you know the secret thoughts of my heart. I may as well pour it out before you, Lord—you are the Almighty God, and every single fiber of my being wants to serve you.

  I just have no idea how. I don't know how to serve you, how to love you, how to let my light shine in the world so that others might glorify you. I am ignorant in these ways, and for decades I have stumbled in the darkness, looking for answers (when I bother looking at all) in every place but your Holy Word. I have neglected my study, instead seeking what is easy, what is immediately gratifying. Forgive this foolish sinner, Lord, and help set my feet on high places, on places that you dwell, and help me ignore the lures with which the world has been so successful in capturing my heart. I chase after the shiny and alluring things of this world, only realizing too late that they are drawing me away from you. May ALL of me be focused on you, on your grace, which is sufficient. I long to rest in that grace, and to be restored, to know life and grace and wonder and joy. I long to be content, Lord, and to let my contentment flow through me, that others may see it and wonder about the source of it, so that the Holy Spirit might put words in my mouth to bring others to know you. 

  My heart beats for you, Lord, and I want to put the sinful things of this world away, to cease chasing them in an endless and reckless pursuit that ultimately will not capture joy for this man. Only you provide true joy. Only you, Lord, can lead me to life, beside those still waters the Psalmist speaks of. My prayer is that I learn what contentment in your sufficient grace is like, and that it establishes a pattern in my life, that all I do might draw me nearer to you, so that I can glorify you in my words and my works.  

  Amen