What comes first, my faith, or the Lord's grace? Repentance, or forgiveness, which comes first?
Friday night, I broke. My heart, my faith, my hope, everything broke under the weight of my incredible need and fear. I was driving home with my mother from my nephews moto-race and I couldn't take it anymore. I started sobbing, crying out in prayer. In a humbling moment, I could no longer pretend I was doing okay. My faith was on it's last let, my hope obliterated, despair deep, heart rendered.
It wasn't because of a break up though, it was because of my own shame, my own guilt, my own anger, fear and hopelessness. I didn't have the faith to believe God was still good. I didn't have the hope to expect in good things. I didn't have the strength to not question His will, His presence, His desire to even show up for me. Was this it? Was it going to be a lifetime of losing and having nothing, not even Him show up in return? I needed something, anything a drop of hope, a split second of relief, I needed rescue; a great, undeserved, unexplainable, unshaking rescue. And on top of that, I didn't even really believe it would show up.
Faith like a mustard seed.
Sometimes, the best we can do is show up. I'm not talking about church on Sunday, I'm not talking about the weekly prayer session, or even opening my Bible. I'm talking about plainly showing up with my dirty rags of misfaith and fearing to even hope He will be there to accept them. Is this real? Oh please, let it be.
A deep moment of humbling comes when the need is greater than the faith is real and present. This life, this world, this body keep me from seeing past to the greatness of His grace and love, so the best I can do is pray He takes me from the valley to the mountain. The best I can do is ask for rescue. Helpless, powerless and worthless, the only answer can be the only hope.
I stopped crying after that. I started to slowly calm down, take deep ragged breathes and hiccup a few times. A deep settling in my spirit happened. I was aware of who I was, what I needed and how great my desperation was. My only hope, my only real hope, was going to hinge on whether or not He showed up.
The next morning, I got up, hurting but functional, grabbed my two Bibles, the book I have been reading, my laptop and my journal and camped out at Pete's for about 3 hours.
I started reading about love, hope and faith. Which was which? Which comes first and how do they work together? The questions weren't important. For the first time in years, hunger for the Scriptures, knowledge of Him, great Grace, was more important than anything else. I needed to know, I needed to feel, I needed to see.
There were no angelic encounters, no words from heaven, no writing on the wall, but for the first time in years, I believed in something greater than a circumstance. I was able to hope, I was able to have faith, I was able to see myself and accept myself, humbled in my own destruction, loved by His incredible acceptance.
It wasn't a movement to Mt. Sinai, but it was just as great. I'm still hurting, everyday is a battle to remember is His good heart for me, to hope for something greater and to believe that a heart is never wasted... including mine. The difference now is, I have the ability to believe. I have the ability to hope, to have faith that brings me back to knowing no circumstance is frivolous.
I'm scarred and marked to remember, I am rarely right, good, or unselfish. I am humbled to know I hurt those I love out of selfish ambition, forgetting that I am the least of these.
Grace has wounded by a forgiveness that met me before I knew I needed it. Repentance for unfaithfulness has come in spite of my unfaithfulness. Whether or not I know acceptance, grace, mercy and love are there, does not change the fact that they are. Whether or not I have the faith to see and believe them does not diminish them. Neither does my ignorance, selfishness or unfaithfulness change His desire to lavish them on me.
His grace, His love, His acceptance is not based on me and my actions. They would no longer be those things if they were. My peace and hope comes not from my ability to conjure them, but because He had enough grace and love for me to make me aware of my need for them. His faith gave me faith to have faith.
So what comes first? I don't know, am I the chicken or the egg?
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