Unworthy.

Why am I myself....and not someone else? 

Do you ever feel unworthy to be rescued? Unworthy....I think many times we can define ourselves by this word, even without knowing it. I shrink from rescue. I shrink from the Only True Sufficiency. It's like we are frozen sometimes, unable to move forward where You call, through the threshold and up the last push to the top of the mountain. Unable for this paralysing fear. The struggle and striving is so much easier for it does not require me to trust. I shy away from His embrace, holding the Bible up before my eyes and picturing my Lord as disappointed and fed up with my weakness and pain-filled heart. And my reflection makes for a poor hope. At every turn, losing my way foot by foot, my hurt and pain grows for the wounds cannot be healed by human hands...the poverty of self fills my sight and blinds me.


And then just when we think we cannot move any further, You save us from the snare and set us free. You carry us through the threshold, and up the last hill to the mountaintop. And there You stand amongst the tall, golden grass....clothing us in white. Setting us free into the field of Your grace. Your presence rushes through our souls, O Lord, the feel of which never ever changes. You have been faithful our whole lives. You sing to us, 'I will never leave you'.....so we can trust. For we don't see what You see,....yet. We don't know what You know,....yet. But Your whisper is brushing against our ears....awakening the painful, beautiful longing in my heart.....to see Your face. I will trust that You are my Upholder. You are my All-Sufficiency. You are my Protection, Safety, Strength, and my very Breath. 

And even when we feel like all we ask for is rescue, do you know what He says to that? He says, 'I take delight in that'. Rescue away, then, Lord....for I drown when I try to save myself. Is it not beautifully devistating to our self-attempts at salvation that all we have to do is ask?


Your goodness breaks my heart. 
        My soul bursts with  
    LONGING to see Your face.


'All He requires of you is to bring to His fullness your emptiness; to His sympathy your grief; to His unerring wisdom your confusion; and to His sheltering wing your temptations and trials.' (Octavious Winslow). 

'Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret.....though you stumble you will not fall, for the Lord upholds you....we will be protected forever....wait for the Lord and keep His way....He is your stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps us and delivers us from the wicked and saves us, because we take refuge in Him' (Psalm 37). 

'To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages now and forevermore! Amen'. (Jude, verses 24 and 25). 


'When the heart has learned how entirely powerless it is for one moment to keep itself or bring forth any good, when it has learned how surely and truly God will keep it, when it has, in despair of itself, accepted God's promise to do for it the impossible, it learns to rest in God. In the midst of occupations and temptations, it can wait continually....This waiting is a promise. God's commands are enablings. Gospel precepts are all promises, a revelation of what our God will do for us. When you first begin waiting on God, it is with frequent intermission and failure. But, do believe God is watching over you in love and secretly strengthening you in it. there are times when waiting appears just like losing time, but it is not so. Waiting, even in darkness is unconscious advance, because it is God you have to do with, and He is working in you. God, who calls  you to wait on Him, sees your feeble efforts, and works it in you. Your spiritual life is in no respect your own work; as little as you begin it, can you continue it. It is God's Spirit who has begun the work in you of waiting on God. He will enable you to wait continually.' (Andrew Murray, 'Waiting on God'). 

The lark, it waits, its beating breast downcast,
Quiet for the break of day and end of night.
Long has this night laid waste the breath of soul,
Its breadth, the scope, is shrivelled, overstretched.
To duty, honour-bound, it has become
Burdened and shackled to its tree of shame.
The dark of lies, they blight the heart of strength;
In close the walls, the voices overpower.
But hush! Recall, Redemption slew the tree!
Lift up, lift up your eyes my weary child, 
Your Hope, once dead, is woke alive again;
Renewed in songs of grace and starfields vast.
              Dance now in light of sun and promise old,
              New spoken as the spring of joy retold.