Meditations From A Broken Spirit

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind – Ecclesiastes 1:14

I’m getting really sick and tired of this world. It seems like every time I invest time, money, energy, or anything that I have in something for the purpose of chasing which I perceive to be good apart from the love and grace of God, I undoubtedly will realize how much I have wasted in trying to accomplish that end.

For example, I went back home to New Hampshire this weekend, and it was incredible. I had a fantastic time catching up with old friends and leading God’s people in worship through music Friday and Saturday. After the festivities had run their course, I started to come to the realization that something was wrong. God was beginning to prick my heart deeply about how love a lot of things that are not God or the Gospel.

Coming to this realization has motivated me to go to the Psalms. I feel like there isn’t any one person that could give me the silver bullet to sort through all the conglomeration of mass that is my mind. While there are brothers that I trust with every detail of my life, I’m at the point where I realize that there comes a point when you can’t talk to anyone, except the only One that can actually do something about your problem. With counselors there is a multitude of safety, but with God there is a multitude of action.

That’s why I turned to the Psalms. David was a man who went through a lot worse stuff than I have and his prayers turned out to be breathed out by God Himself. Sure enough, they've easily been the most helpful.

One thought that kept smashing me over, and over, and over again was how little I actually believe the truth of the Gospel. Psalm 40:4 – “Blessed is the man who makes Yahweh his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!” Especially in the last few weeks, I feel like I have been chasing lies all the time. Primarily the lie that says that I can find something that will somehow make me more peaceful and satisfied in something other than God. As God has been peeling back the layers of my heart through different circumstances and relationships, I see that by chasing this kind of pseudo-satisfaction, I'm only revealing the muck that is in my heart. I show that I don’t love God more than that thing with which I’m trying to replace Him.

For the first time, Psalm 34:8-10 shouted to me in a way that I’ve never heard before, though I've heard it my whole life: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

Did you see that?! Those that take refuge in Him lack no good thing! That means that when we actually seek God, not just pretend to be Christians but actually seek Him with our whole hearts, we will not lack any good thing! Not a single thing. There is nothing that is good for us that we will not have. All that we will have is all the good that we need.

I hope that is clear. When we actually taste the goodness of our God, we won’t want anything! When we see Jesus as better than everything, there is nothing that will seem even close to as valuable. That's why I believe Jesus can say that one must hate his mother and brothers. Compared to the unsurpassable love that we should have for God, our love for everything else may look like hatred to some.

Here’s the problem. Everyone is constantly battling unbelief of that radical truth. Especially me. I feel it today specifically. This weekend hasn’t created any problems, it has only exposed, yet again, more things that I take more seriously than God.

As it would follow, I read Psalm 36:5, and am torn to pieces. “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heaven, your faithfulness to the clouds.” Now you could probably buy a book that will teach seven ways to effectively love God more, but that stuff doesn't help me. I read a verse like that, and I wonder, if God’s love for me is so incredibly infinite and uncontainable, why in the universe would I not love Him more than stupid pettiness that I run after all the time? I can’t understand it (Jeremiah 17:9).

I’m very convinced that after being wrecked by the infinitude of God’s love in comparison to our gross and nasty offerings to him (or things we hide from Him), the only thing that can assuage our guilt is time in deep communion with God that leads to a better understanding of the imputed perfection of Christ on our behalf. This is a time where our ears must be open, mouths must be closed, and hearts must be penitent because He is all we need; He is our portion forever.

This kind of thing is not easy for me. I honestly believe that what I have just laid out is the origination of every sin that exists. I just can’t get that fact to go from jumbling around in my head to actually feeling it in my heart in a way that changes the way I act. It really isn’t easy.

I’m all about resting in Jesus, but I think I’m at the point where I need to actually do some fighting. The funny thing is that it’s not the same kind of fighting that I heard all growing up in the “do-sanctification-yourself” churches I grew up in. The kind of fighting I’m talking about is explicitly stated in Philippians 1:27: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel."

This is what I need to do- work hard to believe the Gospel and try to identify where God is working the Gospel out in my life and in the microcosmic situations in which I find myself; and when I still don’t believe, I need my knees to hit the ground, and pray. I don’t see any other possible solution.

To quote my Greek professor, "The only way to ultimately keep a child from taking candy from the candy jar is to give something that is better than the candy! The child will need more than a command to not want to take it."

Pretty nifty idea.