Stumbling on an Even Road

I’m surprised and frightened at how little it takes to make me go dashing home in tears. I’m a bad risk. I find myself stumbling and tired here, on an even, paved road. There has been no test, but I seem to be tripping over my own feet.

I guess what I needed to see here is HOW MUCH I need God. How much I need him to comfort me and give me strength. How much I need him to make me see the truth behind the enemy’s Lie. How much I need him to take responsibility for the results. How much I need him to protect me from myself. I don’t dare take a single step without him, even here – how much more dangerous it will be in enemy territory. Can I do it? Will I bring dishonor to my God?

These are the considerations that must give me pause; must make me dig hard and deep about the sensitive spaces in my heart. Oh, everything in me groans and whimpers in protest, and I am sorely tempted to turn back. Alas, there is nothing there! I have nowhere to go but forward, into the wilderness waste where, somewhere in the dark cold, a bright and gentle Jesus calls me.

But I am lonely and weary and oddly desperate for something (what?! He knows. I don't). And I am ashamed that I have stumbled here, where there seems no real test, and in my heart I am discouraged. I hear his voice calling me, but he seems far (is that always when he is most near?) and I am loathe to meet him like this, weak and crawling. He’ll love me anyway, but I hate to let him when I cannot love myself.

How I long for something to give! Can I not, with my pain, purchase more than failure and dispair? Is there not a little glory I can obtain, that when my little day is done, I may have something to offer at his feet? O God, what I long to nourish and care for I destroy! Who can save me from myself?

O, God. Train me that I may be able, with the poise of discipline and the passion and deep strength of love, to offer all at your feet; to spend with certainty and purpose the unique currency of humankind – sweat and tears, breath and blood – in the purchase of worship for You, the Eternal.

For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:14