This is an awesome piece that wonderfully speaks the truth of our lives in sin and the greater truth for us in Jesus Christ. Wonderfully done!!! Thank you Pastor Riley!
MR. SELF DESTRUCTION
I was Mr. Self Destruct. There was no relationship I could not drag down and use up. No truth from which I would not run. No need I did not need to satisfy more. Denial, guilt, and fear controlled me. The hatred with which I hated myself controlled me; because I was worthless.
As St. Paul put it, I am predestined for the Good News of Jesus Christ. I am chosen to believe that He made me His destination. He knew me when He wove me together in the secret of my mother’s womb. He stopped the hands on the clock when I thought ticking time was running out. When everything slipped away He grabbed hold of it all for me, stayed with me, brought me near, to give Himself to me. God lowered Himself to me, to pick me up off the garbage heap.
I was worthless as a pen that does not write. More than that, I thought I was born into it. My very existence was worth nothing. I was destined to be used up then thrown away.
Even a godless man can embrace predestination. From the start the poisonous idea grew: Drive people away before they realize the truth, or prove myself invaluable to them. The fruit of power and coercion. A bitter harvest.
For the broken-hearted, who believe in opposition to experience and reason that they are not worth anything to anyone, truth is not going to change the way they lie. They believe they do not live an ordinary life.
I am forty-two years old now. Heart-breaking love from and for my wife and children means less confusion. The illusion that I felt was unreal. When I fell apart, the worst of all, time and memory used me up and threw me away, God reached down to take hold of what He had made and declared that it was very good.
I don’t wonder who I am supposed to be anymore. I live an ordinary life. I live a life by faith in the Son of God who let Himself be used up and thrown away for me.
Even though the belief still lurks in the darkness of my imagination, I do not define myself by who I think I am supposed to be. Who I am is who I am supposed to be in relation to the Son of God. “I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
My need, my values, my hopes that traverse the length of my heart to the brain, are planted and nurtured, plucked up and pulled out, by the one who was treated as human refuse. The man who died in a dump behind the city some two thousand years in the past. The Suffering Servant who willingly took my place on the garbage heap. The same Jesus who, I believe, rose from the dead, rose up into the heavens, who on the Last Day will raise me and all the dead, and give to me and all my brothers and sisters in Christ a seat at the eternal, heavenly feast.
“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”
No comments:
Post a Comment