Surrendering to Belief in Christ
In my previous post, I shared how God revealed Himself to me. But a belief in God is different than trusting Him, and following God through the example of Jesus Christ is different than trusting Him too. Though I accepted Christ years ago, my life wasn’t necessarily changed by the Gospel because there were still so many things that God had to take out of me. Don’t get me wrong, God uses everything but who you are before Christ should look different than who you are once you encounter Jesus Christ. Just like Paul, who was once Saul, on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9. What is it like to be a Christian but not believe that you, yourself have been redeemed by Christ? From my experience, you work tirelessly to prove to God, yourself, and others that you are worthy of salvation.
Living for God without Christ
Before Christ, I lived my life from the standpoint of a victim, believing that all the worst things happened to me, I let my pain define me. I got stuck in believing the lies that there was nothing good in me or others. I began living from that place, though still desperately seeking a glimmer of hope in others because someone needs to have some good in them. I began to cling to the hope of their love in desperation to find aid from the rejection I felt I was receiving from the world. Running. Running toward love but running toward the originator of love itself.
Running to the arms of anyone human who dared to love my broken pieces and tell me that they were beautiful, that I was beautiful. That my pain doesn’t have to define me. The mistake I made is the same one that Eve made in the garden, seeking the truth about who I am outside of the Father who created me. Seeking other created things to help me find myself, to help me find joy, to help me find what is only in the Father, yet denying Him because I’ve been taught that He denies me because of my sin.
But when the truth got hold of me and revealed that that is exactly why he loves me. Not because of my sin but because He loves me, He wants to redeem me from it.
There is redemption…I think?
I was a Christian, yet not able to believe in the redeeming work and finished work of Christ. Not because I didn’t want to believe in Him and also not because of my background entirely itself, but not being able to believe because all I saw was pain. Choosing to believe in God because of an experience at an altar call had only transformed me from darkness to light externally because God still needed to reveal Himself to me internally. He used that moment of my surrender to bring me to a complete undoing of myself toward the being of who He is. That journey, while in theory would be beautiful if it could happen in a day or even a week, for me took years. Which in hindsight is a beautiful opportunity for the Lord to create an ark of the covenant of my life, a testimony of his grace and How He really does do all the work in saving us. Not any work of ourselves and not any ability that we have.
One of the biggest things that you gain when you really hear and receive the Gospel is God’s love. Your life is changed because of the good news is that I was once a sinner now saved through Christ's death, burial, and resurrection because of the Father’s love He sent Him to die for me because I can not save myself or make atonement for my own sin. While I did believe that He died for me, I even believed that He was resurrected. This belief did not stand on the Father’s love for me personally. Maybe for the world, but not for me. I had a deep need and desire for love but struggled to access it as I also struggled to comprehend the foundations of the faith I am not converted to.
So I yoked myself to several people at different times and at some point a man who I thought might be my only shot at love. My only chance to be loved in my brokenness and told that I’m beautiful and strong. I believed his whispers more than God’s yells for me to stop. This can’t be bad right, afterall He is the one that led me to Christ, He must be a good man, a man of God. Meanwhile, God was pleading with me that it was HIM, the I AM, that saved me, not him, the one I married. I would be lying if I said I didn’t hear God pleading with me to stop, to slow down even, that I was going to hurt myself. “Daughter, follow me. I won’t hurt you. My commands are for your good”. That was one of the many times I chose to follow what I thought was good and would offer security instead of trusting that still small voice that warned me to take heed to the concerns that were pricking my heart, as well as my desire to be loved by anything or anyone other than the Creator Himself.
Learning Unbelief from the Church
The only problem is the church convinced me that I was following His commands. Give your life to Christ through serving the church continually and sacrificially, stay pure, and get married. As opposed to following Jesus and giving yourself completely to Him. Two very different things… and two very different faiths. One is predicated on pleasing people and the other is standing on pleasing God. In my heart, I was following all the steps toward God.
What do you do with the brokenness and pain when the pain comes from those who claim to know Christ and follow Him? When the one you seek for the instructions, sells you a lie? In your flesh, you respond with bitterness, contempt, and resentment. Unforgiveness spoils your heart and creates a place to hide in pain and anger. But with Christ, you can respond with compassion, because if you are abiding in Christ the truth is that they didn’t sell you a lie that they hadn’t already been sold themselves. The truth of their pain causing you pain doesn’t make you resentful it creates a compassionate heart that doesn’t stay in proximity to their pain but does pray for their heart and yours creating a bridge to Jesus not a barrier.
People can only give you what they themselves have. Christ is the only one who can truly give living water, and tell you of your worth and value because it lies in Him not in your works of righteousness, not in your scars or battle wounds, and it certainly doesn’t lie in the lies you believe that are either forced upon you or welcomed in to mend the pain.
In all of the ways I may have been misled by toxic church culture and leadership, bad theology and doctrine, and purity culture, I did begin to believe in God and trust that He was bigger than the pain that had turned me into a victim. So instead I choose to be a victor. One of God’s chosen elects, able to stand a battle with her own armor of hiding from the truth in her pain. Afraid of what I might be if I admitted that I was hurt, I hid the pain, which turned into a bruise, and eventually deep cut that because it was ignored laid an infection in my heart which began to grow hardened as unrippened fruit was produced through constantly slaving away to “appear” okay but dead and hurting inside.
Sad, depressed, and broken. I began to believe that maybe God wasn’t so good at all. If He was why am I still hurting? I’ve been serving, I’ve been giving, I’ve been tithing, why am I still broken!? What did I do wrong that He won’t save me? What isn’t He keeping me and transforming my brokenness already? What kind of God causes you to suffer like this…
But it wasn’t God at all causing me to suffer. It was me denying the truth that I had been bruised in the first place. Afraid of what it would mean to admit I’m hurt despite my belief in God. I would get knocked down by life and rush to get back up because I didn’t want God to “look bad”. I was responding as if God didn’t know what to do with my brokenness and still get glory out of it because I’m His creation. This response came from a fragile message contrary to the Gospel. The Gospel message promotes taking all things to God and letting Christ Redeem it because He conquered death. But without the finished work of the cross, there is no redemption for anyone. Which makes a fragile faith, one that is dependent on me to save myself and to create, and build my own weapons and armor that will not stand.
It was the lies that I was sold by the accuser that kept me warm instead of God’s love and truth. What I had laid my head on wasn’t grace at all, but it was denial and a hard rock of “do it all yourself”. I can not access God’s love if the door is closed and locked. How can He come in if I don’t allow His love to permeate the pain and suffering? The fear and unbelief that had settled in front of the door, were locked away by the hurt and lies that the enemy whispered on days I felt alone and rejected. That I’m not loved and no one could ever love me. That because the man I thought God gave me took my heart and trampled it, I must not be worthy of love. I must require correction because God hates divorce right? Though not true, standing in denial of the pain means God’s love can’t sit with me there and heal the pain that has weeded and thwarted His truth. His love. His grace. and His peace.
If I’m being honest, I have sought identity, and peace, and happiness more than I’ve sought God.
The Good News
Through my past, the church, and even my life circumstances God taught me true surrender. He’s gotten ahold of me. He’s shown me just how little I trust in Him, and how I am in the deepest need of grace, not because I’m the worst one, but because I’m a loved one whom He wants a relationship with, to sit in the secret place so He can heal me with his love. Not topical messages, self-help books, and the inner critical voice that judges me and everyone else who looks and acts like they may hurt my heart some more.
God is teaching me that my judgment voice is a representation of the wounded me, the hardened heart that is seeking to be soft but is terrified to let anyone in. Constantly seeking correction to aid my journey to perfection. An impossible and blasphemous feat.
God is teaching me in the undoing of my coveting heart-seeking union with others, leading into psychological terms like codependency, I am truly seeking to place others on the throne of my heart instead of seeking Him as my savior and finding contentment in worshiping Him and Him alone. Instead of seeking only Him, I choose a human to trust, praying that they can carry all my weight and all my burdens. It just so happened that one of the created beings I chose at some point in my life I married him, when I thought all the others fell away. Entering into a covenant, promising to bear with his pain and mine, I created an agreement with the enemy, the one who hates both of our souls that I would keep all the secrets we bear and hide them from God’s wrath under the promise of marriage when actually God’s love wanted to heal it. I accepted the pain as truth and accepted that Christ could never redeem it as I accept mistreatment and say it’s my best shot at unconditional love. Desiring unconditional love but denying the creator of it. This distorted version of the truth can only be distorted if you look at the source of truth. The truth is we do heal in relationships, in community with the fellowship of the saints, but that is only because WE as a body are abiding in the truth of God’s love. In His word, even in the community we seek, the source of the love I am seeking is still Him. It is still from abiding in Him and the finished redeeming work of Jesus Christ.
Abiding in christ is not just sitting and reading scripture all day, which would be nice. It’s not just wallowing in your emotions all day pretending it’s worship or even prayer or avoiding your emotions to be “strong” and offering that as worship either.
Abiding in Christ is abiding in the TRUTH of who God is which reflects the truth of who YOU are because of His identity, sovereignty, and authority. It’s being authentic, transparent, and vulnerable with the true lover of your soul. Your Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Repentance is the beginning of living in truth as you admit and cry out to the one who created you that you also need Him to save you. It is in that humility that surrender can occur or as scripture puts it “a broken and contrite heart” Psalms 51:17.
Belief in Christ
Believing in Christ is the only way to the Father. You can not say you believe in God without believing in the Son. I know because I tried. The word of God is fulfilled in Christ. The message that saves us, transforms us, keeps us, heals us, is a message of redemption. Christ IS that redemption. I’ve sought that redemption in many books trying to understand the mind, the brain, the emotions, and our will. Trying to change habits, and mend broken relationships that I thought would also save me. I’ve searched for identity and purpose. I’ve found it and been disappointed again. I’ve tried to rewrite the shame and even the pride too. I’ve tried to save myself and fix myself too. I’ve attempted to worship despite the pain I’ve hidden from Him. Desperate to be strong enough to say I’m okay and even settle for believing that lie a little on Sunday morning to worship and appear the “I’m okay” lie that I really want to believe.
I am tired and I am done living the lie. The victim-to-victor mentality has not served me well. It has not made me better than I can endure a divorce, a diagnosis of a neurodivergent child, church hurt and abuse, and even financial struggle and strain. What makes me better is running to the one who can heal, and restore, and redeem what has been lost, and rewrite stories that I thought were impossible to salvage.
It has been His love that has saved me. The best example of God’s love IS in His son Jesus Christ. That while we were enemies of God, living in the world and for the world, He loves us so much to send His son to die for us. Even if we, if you, if I, don’t choose Him. He still chooses us. You see HE loved us first. That changes everything. Why would you want a gospel message that doesn’t carry Truth, Grace, and Love? Because in our brokenness we struggle to truly believe that He would do such a thing. It’s such an uneven exchange. Our sin for His grace. Out brokenness for His faithful love. Our unbelief for His tender mercies. Who can believe in a God like this in their own strength??? No one. Even our faith is a gift from God as we abide in Him and remain in His presence.
It is through our surrender that we learn we can trust Him which builds our faith. That as we yield over our pride, and shame stories, He rewrites us a new one with His name on top scratching out the old names that we thought could never be erased.
This name change doesn’t occur with just one prayer on the altar, it doesn’t happen by adopting your caregiver or partner’s faith. It certainly doesn’t happen because you read a thousand books on manifesting your dreams or reaching your potential through changed habits. It comes by seeking God, remaining in Him, and abiding in His love. Trusting the Father to transform you. Having Faith that He can rewrite even the most horrific of stories and believing in His love through the ultimate sacrifice and price He paid.
The Father Revealed in the Son (Matthew 11:25-29)
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
A Prayer for You
I understand this is a difficult thing to surrender. Exchanging your pain for belief in a God you can’t see. But believe me when I say He is a God you have access to in your surrender. He’s a good God and Father who speaks, and who listens. He’s a God who doesn’t just see you in your pain but comforts you in it. He is more majestic and holy than I could ever describe in my experiences. All I can say is that I truly believe in Christ for the first time in my life and it has been the safest place I’ve ever been and I don’t ever want to leave this place with Him. So I offer this Psalm as a prayer to seek the Father and His steadfast love.
Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
Lord Almighty,
blessed is the one who trusts in you.
-Psalm 84:10-12
