Victory in Jesus

Imagine this with me:

You’re a boxer approaching the most important fight of your career. You know the stakes are high: you lose, you’re done. No more boxing. You prepare for weeks, months; you learn everything there is to know about your opponent. They are confident, strong, determined. They know what they want and they go for it, no matter the consequences. You also know this person stands for everything you stand against.

The day of the fight finally arrives and you lay everything on the line. You step into the ring and look towards your opponent. Time freezes and the world falls away as you look into the eyes of your rival. The wind is knocked out of you as if you have been punched and you stagger back into the corner, astonished at the sight. Desperation creeps into your soul and a cry of hopelessness escapes your mouth. There is no way you can win this.

We are all a part of an intense battle. A battle with sin. With the devil. A battle for our souls.

Satan is constantly urging me towards sin. Always trying to compromise, find “loopholes”, and convince me that it’s “not really that bad” to watch that movie or listen to that song. But one bad movie turns into two. And three and four and so on. We are to be careful to give no opportunity to the devil (Ephesians 4:27) for this very reason. If we tell ourselves something is okay, even when we know it’s sinful, it starts a pattern. We will tell ourselves it is okay every time we are presented with the opportunity and eventually, we will start to believe it is okay and we won't hesitate at all. We give the devil a foothold and before we know it, he has our entire leg.

It is usually at this point in the battle that I become exhausted and honestly a little apathetic. I think I am doing well, all the while giving in little by little, until all of a sudden I find myself lost and feeling hopeless.

You remember what is at stake and you give it your best shot. You fight tooth and nail, pushing, kicking, screaming, anything to give you the upper hand. The fight is taking its toll, but you are doing okay. Then you slip. Next thing you know you are on the ground breathless, crawling to the corner, desperate for relief. And cowering in the corner, gazing up at your opponent across the ring, you are overcome with grief, the deepest feeling of despair as reality settles in: you can’t win.

Hold on.

I implore you to just hold on.

Because your Saviour is there. Your guide, your mentor, your friend is right there beside you. And when you realize you can’t win this fight, he steps in for you. He takes your place. He took my place. And he has won. Romans 8:37 says “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Because of Jesus Christ, we don’t just win the battle, we conquer it. We can rest in the confidence that while we are weak and we may lose the battle, Christ is stronger and He has already won the war.

Still small in the corner you watch as He steps into the ring. You know coming in here is a sacrifice for him. Regardless of his own life and out of his immense love for you, he fights your battle. And he wins. Picking you up out of the corner he guides you to the centre where he raises your hand in victory. Because His victory is your victory. 

Corrie: Now Open

It’s been almost a full year since I’ve written a blog post. I took a long, unintentional break from writing. As I had described, this blog was going to be my place that I shared what I was going through and learning as I spent time with God every day and grew. In all honestly, my lack of posts stemmed from my lack of spending time with God and my lack of growth. As a result, I found myself in a very dry season over this past year, with a few refreshing splashes of God here and there.

At first, not much changed; I continued attending church every week and made appearances at bible study. I tried to connect with God. I tried to study his word and keep growing, but nothing seemed to work. I felt far away from God and nothing was helping. As time went on I stopped looking. I made fewer appearances at bible study and rarely paid attention in church. I didn't talk about it. My spiritual life became stale and dark as I went on with my life, applying to college, spending time with family and friends over the summer, all the while trying to reconnect with God but never getting anywhere. I knew I was still a Christian, I still believed the gospel truth and I knew God was still there and that he loved me. I just couldn’t see Him.

September brought drastic and hard changes to my life; I started attending college, which was an equally terrifying and exciting experience. I attended my classes the first week, excited for what this new journey would bring. The first week of school however marked week 2 of my grandpa (whom I lived with) being in the hospital and my optimism and happiness with school ended abruptly when he passed away the Saturday after I started. It was a hard time for my family and I. Through this experience though, I was able to see and feel God again as he carried me through the following weeks. My dry season, however, was not over but just suspended for a short time.

I got into the rhythm of school, met some new people and never felt farther from God. I even became apathetic for a short time, not even caring that I wasn’t growing or feeling God near me. School was taking up so much of my time that I only opened my bible at church.

He crept up in the back of my mind though, and I began to feel the pain in my heart of being so far away from him. Finally I came to a point where I couldn’t handle that feeling anymore. I am a feeler to the fullest, and for so long my spiritual life was all knowledge (which, don’t get me wrong, is very important) but I needed to feel God. My only prayers at that time were desperate cries for him as I was finally at my breaking point and didn’t know what else to do. I took some time to really look at my life and noticed which things were getting in the way. The way I talked with friends and the way I was spending my time was not conducive to growing a relationship with God, one where I would feel and know him well. So I changed those things. As I changed more and more things in my life, I felt myself getting closer and closer to him. I had stacked up things between us like a wall and one by one I was tearing it down, until finally I could hear his voice again. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the other side of the wall and he was there waiting for me.

Things have been getting better. I still struggle a lot with spending time with God and reading his word. But just knowing that wall is a broken pile behind me is enough to spur me forward. Going back to bible study more regularly, God has been opening my eyes to understand more things about him. I am slowly getting to know him little by little. I think I have finally made it to the point of 2 Corinthians 3:18 – “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (ESV)

This comes from the Lord – God has removed the veil over my heart and now, beholding His glory, I am being transformed. God has allowed me to see the beauty of Christ with unveiled face; because of that, I want to change. I want to spend time with him. I want to know him. I want to savour him. I want to praise him. And I want to share him.

So, people are probably wondering why I decided to share about my life, or why you should care about what I went through. It’s been on my heart to share this for the past few weeks. God has been pushing me to be brutally honest with myself to a point that was very hard for me. And now he’s pushing me to be open and honest with those around me, especially those in my church family. Seeing as I’ve always been a closed off person, I thought sharing it on my blog would be easiest and I also think it can reach and help more people this way. Throughout this whole thing, I closed up. I’ve never been a very open person, but over the past year, everything I was going through spiritually and emotionally was closed and locked up inside myself. Closing yourself off is lonely and painful. So I want to help others avoid that. I want to encourage others to open up and share. But I can only do that if I am also willing to open up and share.

This post is also a new point in my blog, the point in which I turn it from a place where I never post to a place where I post openly and regularly (hopefully) about my life and struggles. And I hope others will follow suit. Because I think the best way to facilitate openness and create close, lasting relationships is to set an example, being vulnerable and opening up myself.  

Galatians 6:2 says to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”

It’s impossible to bear one another’s burdens if we don’t know what one another’s burdens are.

So don’t be afraid. Open up to someone close to you. Open up to your pastor. Your best friend. Your mother. Open up here if you want. Just go for it. It’s scary and hard; trust me, I know. But take heart, because I bet whoever you open up to will know exactly how you feel, or may even be going through the same thing. God has this way of stirring us to open up at the right time to the right person. And in saying that, I pray that God’s reason for me opening up at this time and in this way will be fulfilled, and someone will feel him, cry out to him, or have their eyes opened to his beauty for the very first time.