I love fire. I love the color of it: red, orange, yellow, blue, green. I love the warmth of it, burning off the deepest cold.
But I also have a fear of fire. Not the panicky, oh-my-gosh-there's-a-fire-where's-the-water fear . . . although I guess I have done that once or twice!--but mostly a cautious respect, a respect born out of the knowledge of the danger fire poses.
So with all this in mind, I am reflecting on the image of the Refiner's Fire and finding it apt indeed. For that is where I believe I am right now. Right smack-dab in the middle of God's blaze.
It is the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. My soul is blackened, scorched, completely covered with third degree burns. As if that isn't enough, every day God brings something--or someone--into my life to debride the damaged flesh, to further rip apart the nerve endings so desperately trying to reconnect and renew themselves.
As the wounding-healing hands approach me, I shake uncontrollably. I scream. I rage. I rail. I ask them and myself and my God when it will be enough. Why isn't it already enough?
The answer is simple. The work is not yet done. I have more to learn . . . about others . . . about myself . . . about God. I have more to lose . . . more pride . . . more wrath . . . more bitterness.
Most of all, I have so much more to gain. More compassion. More mercy. More forgiveness. More honesty. More purity. More holiness. More joy. More Jesus.
Just as Isaiah could not be used until the angel purified his lips with the burning coal, so I cannot be used--really used--until all my dross has been burned away. But when that day finally comes, when I am shining like the purest gold, what a sight I will be!
Sometimes I would like to to sit down with God and suggest that he hurry this process just a smidge. I've spent 4 decades pursuing godliness . . . isn't it time I get to see a little more of that in my life?
And in that moment, when the raw, exposed soul of me is crying out for relief, I hear it. It is Jesus speaking to the storm: "Peace, be still!" Only this time, it is not a sharp command, impossible to resist.
No.
It is a whisper. A breath. A kiss. A caress. It is the voice of the Lover to his Beloved, the voice of a Lover who will never--could never--be untrue, untrustworthy, unkind. It is the Balm of Gilead oh so gently being poured on the livid wounds. It is coolness and relief.
And it is good.
I think it will help you to think of your past in terms of God's unremitting presence and love. In his catechism, Luther talks about family and friends in our lives as those through whom God loves us. He the source, they the means. For Christ “fills all things in all ways.” Of course there is a double, deepening love with those who truly love us and delight in us.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth considering, based on Pharaoh's unwitting protection and provision for Moses, that God is also more than capable of loving us through our enemies, even their contempt and hatred. For you, that man who was never capable of delighting in you, because blind to both you and God, was still a means for God to palpably love you.
Such a love is no credit to Nick, for what is Nick in himself but a nothing? We were all created from nothing, and are nothing in ourselves, but live and move and have our being in God. There is nothing inherently good or bad in this cosmos, but good comes from consciously seeking rest and refuge in God (Psa 62). Evil is the absence of this. Nick's chosen portion is darkness, the absence of God's love and light. though he seek to render judgment on you, he has no authority to do so, but has been cast aside like the dust of the earth. Nick's curse to you is like a sparrow which flutters about with no place to land.
You have laid hold on to that prized phrase: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." There is no better defense before accusing thoughts than this, echoed many times in the Psalms: "I am your servant."
God has used darkness in your life to awaken you to "hate what is evil, cling to what is good." Because He is sovereign, He ordains all things for good and brings them to pass by means of creatures. Remember Joseph's statement: "what you intended for evil, God intended for good." God sovereignly ended your marriage to free you from darkness. "The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made." This means His love His present even in His wrath and goading discipline.
As He did with Pharaoh, God has done with Nick, giving him over to his sin and freeing you from enslavement to the pain of false, illusory love. All that remains now is for God to finish His work in a final storm of deliverance, just as He did in the terrifying and exhilarating passage through the Red Sea. God is the crusher of all vipers, from Pharaohs, to Pharisees, to foes. That is how He loves them: by bringing their self-annihilating, impenitent sin and violence to an end.
When you look to the past, look for your Maker, who was and is so intimately near you, that He is closer to you than you are to yourself. He was there, loving you through all you endured, redeeming those joys which were false in Nick, but true in Himself. For "The Word is very near you." He consecrates your past and present, and has plans to provide you seven times the joy, in compensation for your loss and your years of loneliness. He is the God who calls things that are not as if they are, and speaks all things from nothing, calling forth delight from the depths of despair.
Let this be a light to you, to drive away those darkly despondent thoughts which harass you persistently and bring your spirit to fainting, weary tears.
"Strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."
He has prepared good works in advance for you to do, and He will again establish the work of your hands, the radiance of your face, and the joy of your heart. The God who "makes all things beautiful in their time," will soon unveil your radiant beauty again. Lift up your head: your redemption draws nigh.