Without Him I am nothing

Sometimes I procrastinate before coming to spend a quiet time with You. I am afraid that You will not speak with me. Or I am afraid that You will not bother helping me with the things that weigh me down. My to-do list is too long. The days are too short. How can I manage this difficult task or deal with that perplexing problem?

Yet I come. There is no where else to go. And I wonder again at how patient and kind You are with my niggling doubts and fears. How could I think that You do not care? Was it not just yesterday when You directed me to a favorite promise given through a favorite Old Testament prophet?

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. (Jeremiah 31:3)

You chose me from before the foundations of the world. And I wonder if You will let me down? Such thinking is rude on my part. Love believes all things. Yet this drifting reveals my need for grace every moment of every day. Left to my own, I simply forget, neglect, become fleshy or rude, even to my God.

The New Testament verses that come to mind say much the same as Jeremiah’s verse, only expand it and give reason for why I need to rethink Your love again and again.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30)

“All things” include even my failings and foibles. I am humbled. You use them to wake me up — to grace, to my need of You, to the power You have to transform lives. And not only that, the reason You bother with me. While You love me and justify me and will glorify me, it is Christ who is glorified and is to be glorified because of Your incredible goodness. This is not about me, but about Your glory.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39)

No, nothing can separate me from Your love. You have already stated it and proven it. No matter how I feel, or wonder, or worry, or am anxious, or even how many times I live the opposite of Your purpose for me, You still love me.

Today I was cleaning out some files and You used an article I wrote to remind me of something You did for me the week my mother died. I wept at Your amazing faithfulness. Then by suppertime, I forgot it and fretted, only to have You come back and remind me again a few hours later.

You bring to mind that sermon we heard it Arizona about the grace that leads us home. It is true that I am helpless without You. You are my Savior and my Lord, yet now I am recognize more clearly that You are also my mind, my memory, my very life.