Do you ever have days when you feel what you conquered several hours before is back defeating you now? For me, this is one of the hardest parts of life.
I'm not one for repetition. I hate song lyrics that repeat and repeat. I get impatient with hearing long stories of trite origin retold.
This is one of the reasons I didn't last as a piano student. I hated scales. Maybe it's because I'm task-oriented; I love to accomplish something and check it off my list. Likely too, I'm just lazy.
Regardless, in my image of how life should play out, I should learn something, master it, and move on; I should not be trying to emotionally grasp it a week, a day, an hour later.
Someone aptly quoted a Professor Clair Davis saying that the Christian life is "a combination of amnesia and deja vu, but I'm not sure if I've said that before!" It correctly sums up this feeling of learning and relearning.
I've been reading through Genesis, Exodus and now into Leviticus. One of the things that struck me this time, while reading of the rituals of the sacrificial system, was how interactive it was. It cost something. You had to bring one of your own animals or purchase one, lay your hand on it, and kill it. It cost financially, but it also cost emotionally. That animal was taking your place, dying because you sinned. The physical interaction had to leave an indelible impression. There was the smell of incense, not to be burned anywhere else; the feel of the lamb's head under your hand as you held it while it was slain; the sight and smell of the blood and burning...
Our sins have cost Jesus the utmost price; dying for sins He never committed, and for people who never loved Him (and most who never would). Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls it costly grace. Jesus paid the ultimate penalty so that we would be free. Free to do what we want? No. Free to serve Him from our heart.
This all comes back to the battle. We are free to fight now. Free to win by the Spirit of God in us, who belong to Him. Yes, it is wearying to fight and re-fight, but we have the chance to win a battle that before Jesus we had no hope to win.
This fight is the cost of our faith. It does not win us salvation, but is a result of being saved.
My nephew said it this way: "Just when I think that I cannot go on, I look up and see Your cross."
And the writer of Hebrews says, "In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." (Hebrews 12:4)
The trials and lessons of life are God's way of discipling us as His sons, Hebrews goes on to say. We are disciplined out of love, so that we won't be spoiled children.
What about you? Are you relearning a lesson you thought you'd learned? Don't lose heart. There is a point to this deja vu. He teaches us again, and He doesn't give up on us.
"Let us not get tired of doing what is good, for at the right time we will reap a harvest-if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)
Maybe that's what Jesus had in mind when He wrote: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Putting your hand on the lamb (the sin we've committed)and realizing how much our LAMB paid for my sin should lead me to mourn (repent) and in turn His forgiveness brings comfort instead of condemnation.
ReplyDeleteI loved your thoughts and words.