All I Am

"When evil got loud, God got much louder."

IT WAS knowing God was with me and had made me strong enough for this day, that got me through many difficult places. The fact He was there meant I could do it. Leaning on Him became a tangible thing. I physically leaned and saw Him there. I prayed and heard His voice. This was real and not imagined. My imagination I let go of. Darkness tried to use it against me, but it didn’t work. Figments are fiction, and fiction I am intensely familiar with. There was nothing in my house, in my car, in my office at work, but Jesus.

Truth is, when evil got loud, God got much louder. He would be heard above anything else.

He made me laugh. The God of the church laughs. I’d heard it said in the Scriptures, but there, according to men, He also nitpicked on where you sat when you prayed, what you wore to church, if you wore jewelry or had tattoos, and heaven help you if you had lied once. God is judgment, they said. And the Bible does say that. But God who spoke to me didn’t care about any of that. Still doesn’t care. It’s like He knows my frame, that I am dust and every thought before it’s spoken and has covered it all with His blood.

He doesn’t talk like He knows it all, though He knows it all. This threw me. He’d reply as if He needed to see and find out, and my brow wrinkled, I’d sit there, thinking, “Didn’t you know that already?” God knows infinite, odd things. Every now and then, some particular fact or numerical number He knows pops into my head. He, in fact, knows how many fish are in the sea, for instance. But the truth of it is, He replies that way because He is so very longsuffering. Where we’re chomping at the bit, “hurry up, hurry up,” unable to wait on others, He never pushes us because “we ought to know by now.” That’s been said in the pulpit, too, and it’s wrong.

God waited to cleanse the earth until all people were violent and no one would repent, and He saved the eight souls who knew Him, with every plan to replenish the earth through them. Sin filled the earth. God washed it. He was extremely longsuffering.

God spoke to Israel of her future when He laid out the Law which we read in Deuteronomy. He tells them “when you sin” then the consequences of it. Not “if” but “when”. He wanted them to choose Him but knew they wouldn’t. He created them for Jesus, but first, there’d be Egypt and Babylon. Rome. He was longsuffering in the face of their repeated idol worship, from the golden calf in the wilderness to the high places of Solomon and the kings who followed. In Malachi, we read He’s tired of their dishonestly offered sacrifices. Imagine if Jesus came to die as the Lamb of God but thumbed His nose at being sinless. Same difference.

O, the blood of Jesus that washes white as snow.

Church-Jesus is temperamental and highly critical. Gentile. Jesus is Jew. He told those listening that God had made Him Judge. Then He tells the Pharisee Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” Jesus’ judgment is mercy. He died in obedience to the Father so that, His Words in John 17, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me (Verse 21).” The Savior I know now likes me just as I am. My best behavior is to be me, right where I’m at, and to know He loves me and will fix all the stuff. Based on nothing I do but on who He is.

Real Jesus is the best man you will ever meet. And He asks nothing of us. We don’t have to qualify, be educated and have a degree, or have enough faith. This last one gets me because I can’t ever, on my own, get enough faith. Instead, I choose to trust His love for me, to make Him responsible, and surrender my weaknesses beneath His strength. He’s proven He can handle it and He’s not leaving.

“I have learned the secret—the secret to real peace and contentment in every situation, regardless of circumstance, regardless of whether I’m hungry or well fed, regardless of whether I am rich or poor. The secret to real peace and contentment is an abiding trust in Christ—realizing that my strength comes from him; and through the peace, strength, wisdom and perspective that Christ gives me, I can handle whatever happens.” (Philippians 4:12-13, Remedy)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com