SITTING, WAITING, WISHING FOR YOU
There is an inherent sadness in my heart because the fire that burns within me seems to lack a place to warm hearts with love and change lives with truth. This is despite the fact that I have been transformed by God beyond what others could have taught me or what I could have attained by myself.
I have biblical knowledge, practical wisdom, spiritual gifts, divine callings and prophecies from God’s messengers in a much greater measure than before. God has proven Himself faithful and true countless times, turning my faithlessness into deep convictions.
I have got all I need to run the race.
Yet, I’m at a place where there’s no fuel for my fire and no track for me to run on. There seems to be no prize at the end of the race that I am still straining to reach. Sometimes I wonder if I should be running somewhere else.
I do not know a lot nor am I always right. But what I know I do know well and they are based on the Bible’s teachings, not personal interpretation. I strongly believe the Bible is always right, just not always practiced.
Sometimes I get angry and ask myself, “If I did what was right, why am I not being treated right?” I have made myself vulnerable by being brutally honest with myself and others, leaving no pity for my esteem and image.
It is so easy to judge others and it seems so right too. Why should I not blame others for their mistakes since I have already taken the blame for mine?
I can see the mistakes of other people but I also see mine, more evident and unrighteous. If I judge them, will I be left wholly free from judgement and punishment? Never. And because I have the greater sin, my defense will be found a terrible excuse compared to theirs.
Sometimes I wish I did not know so much of the truth because I do not know what to do with it. The truth always seems to sets itself against this world and its beliefs and practices. I am not quite ready to take on the role of the revolutionary and change a system of beliefs and systems.
The Bible says, “Do not judge lest you be judged.” but it also says, “Let your yes be yes and no be no. Anything else is from the devil.”
Judging what is definite and leaving the indefinite to God to reveal and judge is what God means. We can say an apple is rotten after we have tasted it but we cannot say an apple is rotten just because it has a worm in it.
Likewise, we can say a person has a stronghold when he did something wrong more than twice but we cannot assume he is unrepentant. To judge in the wrong way is to pass a sentence of punishment, whether physical or mental, without gathering clear evidence and hearing the accused.
Luke 6:41-42 says,
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
Always remember to remove the plank in your eye, symbolizing taking assumptions as fact. Hear people out. We, as humans, have this tendency to think we are always right and others are wrong. But I am sure it has been well-proven that the one thing we have gotten right is that we are not always right.
Remember that people, unlike non-living things, are to be treated differently and to be given grace for repentance’s sake. Love, not law, keeps the erring one from falling.
Because of this knowledge, I feel a great sense of injustice. Yet, at the same time, I want to submit to His will. Why should my added knowledge, which should lead to maturity, cause me to be immature in reacting to the mistakes of others?
Running away from shame has never been Jesus’s way. His way was to confront shame in its face and say, “Humiliate me but I will keep silent. I will still do what I have been sent to do, even if people do not think it is right or worth it.”
Jesus silenced His critics by His silence. He showed His faith by His deeds. He moved people by standing still on the Cross. And He was heard because of His reverent submission.
1 Peter 2:18-23 says,
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.
For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully.
For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
“ Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously;
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
I sometimes even ask myself, “Am I apostate or heretical? Why then does this knowledge die in me, at most an ideal, and never expressed as truth in practice?”
But when I look back at the sufferings of the saints, I see that I have not even begun to understand true faith. I hope that God will give me an attitude that David and Job expressed.
I want to be like Job who did not put his trust on outcomes, but on God’s faithfulness. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).
Psalm 27:13-14, written by David, says,
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!
Trust in the definite parts of God that He has shown you and leave the indefinite parts of God to Him to reveal. Do not doubt in the dark what God has revealed in the light. We will understand His ways better as we go through pain and suffering.
This entry is directed at no one. I just want to write something down from my pent-up emotions that one day I can look at and reflect on, good and bad.
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