Beauty from the Ashes

It's so easy to get so caught up in doing good works that you miss out on the bigger picture. I am the type of person who has spent so much of my life trying to help other people to have a better life that I hardly know what else to do. As a christian, I believe we are called to be a light in a progressively darker world. If I see someone in need, and I know I can help, I have always believed that generally, we need to do that. I have tried to live a life that reflects these values, and I believe for the most part I have been successful. What is success? In this context, I have generally thought that it would be to die to yourself, to your own desires, your own wants etc. But I have come to realize that is only the half of it. I have been a christian for longer than I could really say. I've been to more church services, been on more mission trips, given more financially, listened to more worship cd's, volunteered in more capacities in more ministries than anyone even myself could ever calculate. Heck, I even live in a church, and have for over three years. I'm not bragging, though, just making a point. I'm the sort of person who has really genuinely tried in many ways to give all I have to God and to his kingdom. I have tried to make my life a living sacrifice that would please God and help others to know Him. People have phoned me more times than I could ever count asking me to help them with this or that, give them a ride here or there, help them get out of this or that dangerous situation and I in general have almost always said yes. Sometimes when my phone rings I cringe and almost want to cry. In my head I'm like "NO! GOD HELP ME!" and then I answer the phone, "Hello? ...ummm, sure, okay...I'll be right over." I have counted this as making my life a living sacrafice to God and to His church. Which, well, it is. I have given money I don't have so many times that I'm now way in debt, And I do mean way. But I justify it by saying, "Well, I'm giving to God... He will help me to afford it." And I do believe He will, has and is. Saying all this though, What I'm getting at is that I do the stuff, but I've become so busy doing the stuff, that I no longer have time for God. So busy trying to be the church, that I've forgotten that the church, first and foremost is supposed to be the bride of Christ. We are called into a love relationship with God absolutely first and foremost, and everything else, no matter how important, is supposed to be a distant second. I have not lived that out well in a long long time. I have always gotten so much of my strength with which to live and operate, my passion for life and living and my hope excitement and energy from intimate time with God. From being in the word, from being in worship. But for so long now I have so deeply surrounded myself with the needs of others, that I no longer took time to read the word. I became so busy helping people even during our church services that I never got into worship. The needs of people around me became so heavy and I so desperatly wanted to help them. But As I immersed myself more and more into that, I found less and less that I was close to God anymore. As I have seen, often first hand, such horrible things happening around me, I carried that. As people shared stories with me of painfull situations they have been through, I carried that pain. As people have told me about being raped, being forced into things unimaginable to most of us, I carried that too. And My anger grew. And grew. I heard of kids I know having their innocence stolen from them, and I became even more angry. I so many times have asked God, How can you have allowed this to happen? I became angry at God. Very angry. Unable to reconcile the God I knew from the bible being so far from where I expected and wanted Him to be. I began to feel that God was not so much this awesome, loving father that I preached about, but rather a distant landlord. Sure He was out there somewhere, but where? Sure, the Bible says He loves us, but I thought I knew what love is, and God seemed to be so far from my ideals of a real loving Father that I came to decide that although I know on paper He does love us, His love is different than mine and I somehow had it better than He did. I was left in this cold miserable city of pain cleaning up His mess, trying to help His children, while He was off somewhere in some prosperity church being praised. Probably somewhere nicer and warmer than here, too. Yeah some God you turned out to be... That was what my faith became. I was out doing all the stuff, taking care of His kids, Trying until it took almost everything from me that I had, to help people... to save them. That was it, I wanted to save them. Jesus obviously couldn't, or worse, wouldn't, so I would. Angry, bitter, tired, in financial ruin, and now with a saviour complex thinking I could save them. What a life. But praise God for His grace, He still loved me. I could no longer say I still loved Him, though I really did want to, but He did love me. And He spoke... He showed me that I had lost my first love. I never took time to seek Him, to worship, and in reality I didn't want to anymore. I wanted to want to, but I didn't want to. I remember taking up my guitar trying to play some worship song, and only getting a few chords out. I couldn't worship someone I didn't even like. I just felt sick. In frustration, I put back the guitar and went off to do something else. I had lost all my love for Him. I still knew He was there, and I knew that without Him we were all stuffed, but what could I do? Out of all this suffering, God spoke to me and showed me that I needed to seek him. I needed to return to my first love. Sure I was doing great things, or trying anyways, but that wasn't what was foremost on his mind... He wanted me. I was supposed to be the bride of Christ, not a burned out social worker. I was called to be a worshipper, not someone who just got angry when he picked up a guitar. I was called to be in His Presence, in His throneroom... not the desert. But the desert was where I had resided for far too long. So now where am I? Well I'm working on it, but this time by His strength, and in listening for His voice. I connected with some friends here in Winnipeg who have started a prayer movement called the Sanctuary House of Prayer (I've known for over a year I was supposed to be there, but, well, I was too busy...) So now I am trying to reprioritise things, to be putting God first in everything. I'm trying to be in the word more but I still have a long way to go. I want to be a worshipper. And I know He's calling me to be. I so want to be in love with God again. But I have to let Him be God, and I have to let Him carry peoples pain, because I just can't. Maybe a bit and for a time but at the end of the day I just can't. I was at a conference in the states a couple weeks ago, and I just really felt God asking me to let go. I cried. I was so broken because of my love for those who have been so close to me, and my fear, my very real fear that they won't follow God, and that He won't protect them. But I'm not God. He doesn't do things my way. I have to accept that. We each have free will, for better or for worse, and I have to accept that, too. And I have to learn to trust Him, that He really does love those that He has given me to be a sheperd over, and that He will be faithfull to look over them and protect them, whatever that entails. I have to trust that He knows what is best. And I have to remember too, that He does feel the pain of rejection every time one of His kids whom He loves turns away. And that it does grieve Him deeply to see them hurt, every time any of them are hurt in any way. And as I stood their and cried, I think for the first time I began to feel some of that pain the way He feels it. Yes, He told me I wasn't Jesus, and I couldn't save people. I can help them, sometimes, but I'm not Jesus. I would die for them in an instant if I could, but well, He already did, and my death wouldn't buy much. Not now anyways. Jacob