11 This is a faithful saying:
For if we died with Him,
We shall also live with Him.
12 If we endure,
We shall also reign with Him.
If we deny Him,
He also will deny us.
13 If we are faithless,
He remains faithful;
He cannot deny Himself.
I came across this text over my read-through-the-Bible-in-2022 program on Christmas Eve. Along with being a great opportunity to set to music, it was a great and necessary reminder for me regarding my faith and relationship with God. This year, more than ever, I’ve been more cognizant of not only how much God hates sin but also my struggle to, well, not sin. I’ve become more aware of how critical forgiveness is, specifically my forgiving others. For a long time, I’ve been struggling with a pattern of compulsive thinking that involves fantasizing about getting into arguments with others in order to win and to shut them up. As best I understand it, the motivation and impulse behind this pattern goes back a long way, to a time when I was powerless to not only defend myself but also to stop from happening the arguments I was seeing. Worse (and this has since been confirmed by the counselors that were in my life for many years), the content of the arguments I both witnessed as well as was on the receiving end of things showed that those that were causing me pain were in the wrong, not just in how they were behaving, but also the content of their talking points as well as their attitudes. This is not to say that I was 100% in the right, not even close. After all, I too am a sinner in need of salvation and grace that can only come through receiving that forgiveness of my sins from Jesus (as well as receiving Him as my Savior and my King). But, to have received any validation at all of my experience and my perspective opened my eyes as well.
I have since forgiven the individuals that I believed were responsible. But I’m aware that I still experience these same thoughts and feelings even when I meet new people. Therefore, even if these persons are committing grave sins, I am still the one primarily responsible for whether or not I argue with them in my head to point out how wrong they are and why they need to shut up. There is real experiential meaning behind the phrase “the one that forgiveness frees is you.” When I truly forgive, I stop thinking these thoughts. As a result, I have the opportunity to have more peace, which is what I ultimately want, anyway.
casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
The challenge with all this is that I’ve had to navigate this without the help of a support group, which I left in 2021. I left for a variety of reasons, but the chief one was that I couldn’t think of anything else where I still legitimately needed that week-in-week-out, goal-oriented support. I’d worked through the main chains and pains that had been holding me back as an adult related to my family growing up. Any peer-related issues were solved by virtue of me having (and continuing to be) intentionally set up an inner circle of friends to check in with and support. As far as the professional area of my life, I had just started a new path, including classes in school, and I was still very much in the honeymoon phase of that. I had a path, anyway. And of course, the main reason I sought help over a decade ago, was healing the misery I constantly experienced not just around singlehood but the hopelessness of ever being able to figure out how to move past it. There were other smaller things, but the point was, I was ready to graduate to adulthood without the training wheels.
I’m not going to say: “or so I thought,” although it is
tempting to do so. I am finding my way a lot better than I had been previously.
I have been able to find a few resources that have helped fill some gaps I had previously
forgotten to ask my support group to fill when I was attending. I am doing more
things. Since late-summer, I’ve been holding down 2 jobs while going to school
at the same time! I’m saving money, and slowly building this career that I’m
still figuring out. I had previously thought it was going to be accounting, but
I now have 15 months’ experience in procurement, work that I do find fascinating.
But I promised my love that I would continue my classes in school, if not for
accounting, then to at least round out my credentials as I build my career portfolio
in whatever this turns out to be, to bolster my case for eventually commanding
a higher salary (and other appropriate accompanying perks).
That said, I still find dealing with other people’s baggage stressful
and borderline insufferable. That’s what makes work exceedingly difficult at
times to manage, as well as that of a few relationships I’ve picked up more
recently (thankfully, no issues like this are with my love!). I’m aware I still
have huge growth gaps in certain spots, to where I wish I still had that
formalized structure of the support group to help walk me through them. I still
see my counselor of almost 12 years on a monthly basis, so I have a lifeline
with someone who is trained (and at the same time empathetic) to walk me
through certain aspects of the day-to-day that are still difficult to manage
sometimes. For that – and for him – I continue to be very grateful.
And so, what’s left? This is where maintaining a regular
habit of Bible reading must come in. This is where maintaining a regular habit
of prayer and praise/worship must also come in. My Bible reading is as sporadic
as it has been, but at least I am better than where I used to be years ago, in
the first few years after I first was saved in 2013. I haven’t read the Bible
since Christmas, when I came across the above passage from Paul’s second letter
to Timothy.
Even as I write, I am aware of wanting to defend myself even
when I name current personal weaknesses. “I still struggle with this, but at
least I…” etc. It is because of this that I’m still figuring out where the
line is, the line that separates “justified by faith” / “Christ’s strength made
perfect in my weakness” vs. “I’m in sin” / “in need of conviction and
correction.” I suspect that both are true, simply because both are true in my
life every day. But there’s a clear line.
Hence the power of the following line from the book of 2
Timothy (again the passage from the beginning of this post): “If we deny
Him, He also will deny us.” BUT: “If we are faithless, He remains
faithful.” This means that He doesn’t give up on us, so long as we are at
least trying to please Him, even though we fail repeatedly, over and over and
over again.
Not all years are created equal, a truth I’ve been aware of for a long time now. After repenting and returning to the Lord in 2019, 2020 and to a lesser degree, 2021, were years where I felt I was doing great in my faith and relationship with Jesus. 2022, not so much. But then again, 2020 saw not only the event of a lifetime for us all, but also a series of sweeping circumstantial changes in my life personally. 2021 was basically a smaller version of the such, although with still-significant events that occurred. 2022 was basically the same set of circumstances throughout the year, with the only changes that occurred being incremental ones. Which leads me to ponder and think on two questions: 1.) Do I seem to do better in my faith when there are a lot of sweeping circumstantial changes in my life? (The answer appears to be yes.) 2.) What then do I need to do in order to do my faith-walk with Jesus better when seemingly nothing is happening? I already have my answers: read the Bible regularly, pray regularly, and praise God (with or without music) regularly. That, and continue the work that was begun years ago to the best of my ability.
being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
I’ve been beginning to prepare for 2023. On the one hand, at this point in my life it’s just another year. But on the other hand, circumstantially, it is not “just another” year; my love and I will spend this next year getting things ready for both wedding day and married life. As previously mentioned, I will be working 2 jobs and going to school. My love will also be expecting to work 2 jobs and, for the time being, continuing to go to school. (She’s basically graduated at this point (I’m so proud of her!), and she’s pursuing internships to kick-start her new “day job” career, which would require her to continue to take classes for the time being.) Somewhere in there, wedding planning will occur. Somehow. And yet, between our own mutual desire to be married, as well as other circumstances beyond our control that still (may) directly affect us, we have talked about making the wedding date earlier than our current projection of 2024 sometime. But even that is up in the air, if we even decide to move it up.
I don’t have a stirring way of wrapping up this post. The
story continues, because it is not yet completed.
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