Confessions

I wish I understood why it so often feels like an unrelenting battle to abide in a place of contentment and joy. I've been learning it, writing it, living in it, but as quick as a flash flood, I can find myself swept away by the current in a completely different direction. I wish it weren't so; it's humbling to admit it. But I can so easily forget what I know to be true, nibbling at the bait, caught at the end of a hook of lies. How one day I can know that I am completely satisfied with Jesus alone, that I love my life for where it's at right now, unsolved mysteries and all, and the next day, feel like my life is a complete failure, so far off course from where I wanted to be at this point in time - it can be downright discouraging. And all those things I've been assimilating into my being, those nuggets of truth that are stashed like treasures in my heart, suddenly seem so illusive. Like I was an idiot for believing they were real.

I'll tell you, being in this place is not unlike being stuck in a whirlpool, sucking you down, down, down, with impressive force. The only way I know to exit the whirlpool, or be released from the hook, is really quite simple. Not to be mistaken for easy, mind you, but neither is it complicated. Here it is: I remind myself of what I know to be true. Usually, I sing it. Kinda like how liquids get into the bloodstream faster than pills, I just think swallowing truth in song reaches my spiritual bloodstream faster than reading it or thinking it. It sounds really spiritual, and I suppose if one simple definition for spiritual is something other than my natural human response, then yeah, it's spiritual.

Thank God I'm not powerless or helpless or defeated, because Jesus extends his lie-shattering victory on the cross to all who receive him as beloved Savior. Thank God that all those pieces of the puzzle of life that don't yet appear to fit together are not my responsibility to assemble. Thank God that, when those flash floods come in and threaten to sweep me away from my place of joy and contentment, the Spirit of God rises up in me and swells like a song of liberation, pushing back the flood waters.

Tonight, this song was the swell God used to usher in his peace (and I didn't write it - Misty Edwards did). Regardless of how I may feel about my life at times, this is what I know to be true, what my heart wants most in this life.

I will waste my life, I'll be tested and tried

With no regrets inside of me, just to find I'm at your feet

Let me find I'm at your feet

I'll leave my father's house and I'll leave my mother

I'll leave all I have known and I'll have no other

I am in love with you, there is no cost

I am in love with you, there is no loss

I am in love with you, I want to take your name

I am in love with you, I want to cling to you, Jesus

Just let me cling to you, Jesus

I'll say goodbye to my father my mother

I'll turn my back on every other lover and I'll press on

Yes, I'll press on

And I'll press on, yes I'll press on

For I am in love with you, there is no cost

I am in love with you, there is no loss

I am in love with you, I want to take your name

I am in love with you, I want to cling to you, Jesus

Just let me cling to you, Jesus