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Jan 06, 2024 06:00am

Growing Toward It

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Unmet expectations,
False presumptions and half-hearted intentions.
I wonder if I am just the latest fool to buy the lie.
The man on the cross told me to come and die,
But I didn’t realize dying was a process.
And oftentimes is not marked by progress.

If holiness is the standard, then I’m afraid I’ve missed the mark.
I’ve come all this way to only be caught somewhere in between my head and my heart.
How could my Jesus leave me stranded here?
Maybe my worries were right. I’m too far gone, perhaps I was right to fear.

If it’s taken me this long, then maybe I should wave my white flag in surrender.
The flame that once raged, is nothing but an ember.

My heart sings a mournful song:

Not victorious, but defeated.
Not joyful, but dull.
Not delighting, but disciplining.
Not pure, but pitiful.

I ask Jesus for deliverance and in return he gives me silence.
But then I begin to think, my heart begins to churn: maybe in the quiet, God is working out violence?
Maybe my God is too busy to respond because he is going to war for me.
Conquering enemies, breaking down walls that I can’t even see.

My heart sings a new theme:

Not grown but growing.
Not healed but healing.
Not being but becoming.
Not perfect but being purified.

I am not yet what I will be, but I am growing toward it.

*Inspired by David Powlison’s “Making all Things New”