It's taken me two months to be able to write this post. I'm still not sure I have the words to say.
My life has been completely rearranged, and not by my own choosing. Sometimes the person who you trust the most becomes the one who can let you down the most. Sometimes the one person who you let see your sin and scars can leave you the most ashamed and wounded. Such is the way when we place our faith in frail humanity. All people are sinful and will always let us down at some point--the degree of that just tends to vary. I'm not trying to be a pessimist about all of humanity for I am still an optimist at the end of the day. I still pray God's goodness will transform hearts and change people's calloused pride. But that doesn't always happen. God is gracious enough to give us free will and the ability to make mistakes, sin against one another, and have time to repent whilst experiencing the great consequences of our wrongdoing. Otherwise, we'd just get struck down every time we screwed up. But there is still that fighting voice that sounds in our minds and demands answers for all the mess of this life.
When your beloved becomes a liar, what do you do?
When your hero becomes a coward, what do you do?
When your life becomes a sham, what do you do?
When your promises become dust, what do you do?
When your love becomes worthless, what do you do?
When your tears become ineffective, what do you do?
I really don't know any of these answers. I may never know them. And sometimes no amount of prayers or worship or cries or logic or anger or weeping will give you answers. That's alright. It is a humbling reminder of your humanity and inability to come up with answers when left to your own devices. A humbling reminder that the person who has so terribly wronged and betrayed you is JUST as human as you are.
A man Job was terribly wronged and went through some of the most injustice circumstances this world has seen yet. In the end, none of that suffering was because of his great piety or lack thereof. God alone held the answers. A man Jesus was betrayed and abandoned and experienced every single suffering that anyone's on earth could be compared to. In the end, even His most pitiful cry in the Garden was left unanswered. But God alone still held the final word. After the Jewish people had been led around the desert for 40 years, God finally gave them an answer as to why they had been wandering. He told them that He had done so to humble them and test what was actually hidden in their hearts. He wanted to see if they truly loved Him and would keep His commands.
When we are sinned against or when God directly intervenes, I believe that we are left with one response. Know that God has the answers and rest in that fact. All I need to do and literally all I'm capable of doing is to love Him and keep His commands. Even if someone demonstrates to you EVERYTHING that is the opposite of God's character, we are to be like Him towards others. We will not always have the answers, but we can still love God more than anything and follow His command to love others even greater than ourselves. If we are racing fast towards Him and loving others along the way, He will show His face to us and bring healing--even if we don't have the answers. All of us will stand before Him and be held accountable for how much we loved Him and whether or not we demonstrated His character to others. There is comfort that the God who is healing you is also the very God who will hold accountable those that sin against you.
Psalm 147: 2-11
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel.3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord with grateful praise;
make music to our God on the harp.
8 He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He provides food for the cattle
and for the young ravens when they call.
10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
11 the Lord delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.
Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
God will always be the better husband. God will always be the better Father. God will always be the better friend. He is faithful and selfless and sacrificial and perfect in His love--even when all others are not. He alone gives us breath. He alone is the great lover of humanity.
