Diary of a Broken Vessel

The hardest part is not the experience, but learning from the experience and learning to let it go. The faces, the names, the voices, the words, and the actions of yesterday have replayed themselves in my mind and in my heart for far too many years. The scars have not been my identity as much as it has been the scar givers and the scar giving experiences which have defined much of who I am.

The Lord granted so much grace when I was enable to let go of two of my ghosts, and now I am being lead to seek after the Lord for the release yet another ghost. This ghost was once such a great and beautiful idol in my life. It defined so much in how I felt about the whole of modern Christianity. But the Lord is teaching me the importance of relinquishing my grip on something that has been so powerful and so influential throughout my journey, and letting Him have access to every part of me.

The Lord has convicted my heart and has brought me again to a place of repentance. I’ll never gain what I hoped for because what I’m asking for is amiss. I have been seeking to attain the wrong prize…their apology and approval.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it…”
-John 14:12-14(emphasis mine)

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
-James 4:2-4 (emphasis mine)

I desired and asked for the things of my own heart. I wanted according to what I thought was right and good, and not according the heart of my Savior who is my everything. I wanted peace with my world, but Jesus calls us elsewhere; to forsake all else to follow after Him (Luke 9:22-24; Luke 14:25-27). I understand now that the things I wanted would have only further hindered and stumbled my walk.

Instead of asking for what I wanted, perhaps I should have asked the Lord to give me the strength to forgive (as often as necessary if need be) and to release them from my life. It is moments like this that I wish I wasn’t so stubborn because the peace I have in Christ now is more satisfying than any “peace” I could have forged with my past. All things have their time and purpose (Ecclesiastes 3).

This experience has taught me so much, but now it is time to lay it to rest. What happened was wrong. Letting it go does not negate that simple truth, but God is far greater than all of this.

Lord,

Great and Holy God, who is merciful in His ways, who shows an abundance of grace to those who call upon the name of Jesus. Grant me, O Lord, Your peace and Your strength. Liberate me from these binds once and for all. Let me trade this suffering idol for You. I bring these ashes to trade for Your beauty.

Be, O Lord, my everything.

Amen.

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.