My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
I have been struggling with fears. And as I have been struggling with these fears, I am finding that there is so much sin in me. And I am crushed by who I am and how I respond. There is so much in me that I hate. And I am devastated and in shock by what I see in my own heart.
I think I was just hoping for more. I was hoping I’d be stronger. And it is tearing me apart that I am not. I think I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with these fears anymore. So, when I see myself fall into them it devastates me. And even though I have grown, I think just the fact that I have these fears at all is breaking my heart. I should have conquered these fears by now.
I looked at Romans 7, last night. I feel like this. Not understanding, hating myself, feeling like sin is always just right there, this constant war. At the end Paul confesses who he is, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? . . .
. . . Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” I need to trust Christ. He is the one that can deliver me from this body of death. The next few chapters are powerful in talking about how God is sanctifying us and making us more like Him. I need to hold on to that promise in the midst of these struggles. I need to be reminded that even though I fail, He doesn’t. And that the Gospel that saved me will also sanctifies me.
I think I have been working so hard not to fear, that instead of looking to God and His grace and His strength, all that I can see is myself as a failure, instead of a man that God is working on and changing. It is not me who is glorious, it is Him. I have no good thing apart from Him.
John Calvin said, “I call ‘piety’ that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces.” I must have faith in His sovereign goodness and His Fatherly care for me in my struggles with sin. The punishment was taken at the cross, and therefore there is no longer any condemnation, only a loving Father, who walks alongside me and trains and leads me, so faithfully and so lovingly, and so patiently. And I need to trust in His promises to sanctify me.
And even though He might discipline me with the rod, the rod is not an instrument for punishment or retribution for my sin, but an instrument for training me in righteousness. It is His loving hand guiding me and protecting me in the way I should go. And He is so faithful in taking this boy and making him into a man.
