I am not attempting to re-preach what the pastor shared that Sunday. I am writing down how the dots I perceived throughout my week somehow connected, and the message at church was sort of the climax of that connection.
Last week I had tried to make sense of my condition (my illness, my heart, my desire, my career, my citizenship, my future, etc). Although God did speak to me through my devotional readings, Bible verses, songs, people and circumstances, those only seem to give me one or two pieces of an incomplete puzzle. Yes I did feel a bit better after each 'revelation' and yes I still kept my hopes, but I still wanted more clarity.
"We are interested in the gifts more than being in a relationship with the Giver," the pastor said last Sunday. "I want the health, I want the success, I want the blessing, I want the fruit of the relationship, but I don't want the trouble of the relationship. We're like the prodigal son! When the blessings become more important than companionship with our Creator, no matter how religious we look, we actually have lost our first love."
My heart skipped a beat. Have I longed for healing/the gift of health more than a deeper relationship with God?
"Every person of faith acknowledges that they are strangers in exile on earth. We are living less than our fullness," the pastor continued, referring to Hebrews 11. "We are not where we belong. We are in Babylon but we are made for the Promised Land!"
My mind instantly recalled what I wrote on Day 132 post.
"In Isaiah 35 we read, 'strengthen those who are feeble and encourage those who are weak'. So who are the feeble and weak?" asked the pastor to the congregation.
I almost waved my hand and yelled, Me! Me!
All of us are weak and feeble!
We are not strong. We cannot produce.
We have tried, it is hopeless!
"But hear this: who qualifies to be in God's story?" the pastor shared from 1 Corinthians 1. "The poor, the weak, the feeble, the foolish, the broken, the lame, the anxious! To these people God says, 'I love you'. How good that news is!"
My heart almost exploded. Now the verses I posted on Day 130 made more sense!
"I was once depressed, I got a million questions of faith, God was distant, and I was physically sick," the pastor went on. "Then my friends came to me and said, 'you're feeling empty, Richard? Perfect! In your emptiness now God can fill you, because before, when you felt so full, you were full of yourself. But now that you're empty, in your emptiness, you'll call out to God and receive all that He is.'"
We can't be in God's story until we say:
"I have nothing, Lord!"
"I have nothing, Lord!"
I couldn't count how many times I have complained to God that I've got nothing left to live this life; how often I felt like I have caused burden to people around me; how much I've begged Him to restore what's lost; how much I wanted to go back to the way it was. And then that evening, I became aware that what I had been longing for was actually my "Babylon". Often when we are in exile, we just want to go home.
"God relentlessly pursue us until our longing is for God Himself first," said the pastor. "Exile is for the longing for Christ, not only for solution. Christ is our home, our satisfaction. Anything else will fail you."
At this stage, I've come to believe that I am currently experiencing exile. I see the gap between the life I am living and the life I am meant to live. Therefore, I hold dearly the picturesque description of God's promise in Isaiah 35:
With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those who have weak knees. Say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you." . . . Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness.
God doesn't delight in vengeance because the goal is not my pain, but transformation. This truth is undeniably more freeing and more powerful to me than having to 'claim healing to my body in the name of Jesus', which I found so onerous!
With that great news, I came home with indescribable joy and peace.
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