It didn’t shatter in my hands like I expected.
God forced me to be in control, to work patiently and
tediously through my pain. All I wanted
to do was have an emotional outburst—a two second reaction that came and
went. But God didn’t see it fit to lend
me that, and instead I worked the edges of the disc back and forth systematically
until I could finally tear it in half.
It was like that with each disc that followed. Bend, bend, bend and pull, bend and pull.
The Thursday before this, I listened to a sermon by Matt Chandler. Conviction nailed itself to
the remaining pieces of my heart.
So many of you, at some point in your life, entered into some sort of
shallow commitment to Christianity. I
don’t know what it was. Maybe you were
afraid of hell. Maybe you were by your
nature a conservative you so you like that moral box that you saw Christianity
to be. Maybe this is just what you do
culturally and you’re a church person.
But some of you have entered into some shallow commitment to Christianity
but if we could sit down and talk with one another and I could push you and
have you be honest, you do not hate sin, you do not love holiness, you do not
pray, you have not been transformed by the presence of God and Christianity is
simply what you check on the box of religious preference in the census or when
you go into the hospital.
I had been lying to myself. The darkness was lying to me. I believed I could be spiritually-centered
despite my less-than-centered actions.
My heart did not match my character and the tension was creating a void
within me. I was separating myself from
God.
I was looking down into the chasm, my feet on the edge of
the cliff. I felt as if the mountain was
too steep to climb up and back into God’s arms.
And so here I hovered, in between death and life, too weak to move one
direction, too scared to succumb to the other.
It was the shaken voice of Dusty Oglesby that I heard
above my fear. An accent steeped with
sorrow, and a little bit of country, met me in the chasm. He talked of his life, his anguish, his
hopelessness, and his hope. The swelling
lies within my sinful heart quieted for a moment. Looking down into the pit of condemnation, it
was his tearful recollection that acted as a rope—a tether holding me to Christ.
As the afternoon faded into a Friday evening, it was then
I sat on my bedroom floor. As I ripped
apart the last piece of plastic, I sat, shaken, sad, and tearful, in front of shredded
pages and shattered DVDs. I stared at
the pieces of my past that had held me captive for so long, but would never
again. In place of captivity was posted
a new sensation of hope, the same that must be stationed in Dusty’s redeemed
heart.
I am still a believer today of the struggles. But today I struggle well. And with hope...our hope does not lie in each
other, but in a Savior who forgives, redeems and restores.
Dusty Oglesby
If you think your life is beyond repair, you are wrong. If you think it cannot be restored, you are
wrong. If you think your best days are
all behind you, you are wrong. If you
think it is impossible for God to bring good out of bad, you are wrong. Jesus Christ is in the business of
restoration, reconditioning, refurbishing, renewing, and recovering that which
is lost. Jesus said, ‘I came to seek and
to save that which is lost, not only you but what you have lost.’ The Bible says therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature and the old has passed away. The new has come.
Pastor Rick Warren
Jesus didn’t die to make you a better person…he died to make you
completely new.
Pastor Bryan Lorritz
Dear God, You know all the
frustrations in my heart. You know all
the things I thought were unfair and unrealistic, and the things I have
rebelled and resisted, and do not like.
I give You all my frustration. I
want to turn all my focus from my pain to your love. Hope returns when I remember this one thing:
the Lord’s unfailing love.
Draw nigh to God,
and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your
hearts, ye double minded (James 4:8).
