God, help me, too! (Mark 8)

If I am honest, when I do not write, it is not because I have not felt a whisper in my spirit to speak or even at times a compulsion; when I do not write it is because writing requires more effort than I want or have to expend. Today I write because it is too hard not to do so. My heart is full, and be warned that it is about to spill over onto this page.

As I’ve studied Mark (particularly chapter eight this past week) and seen Jesus show his disciples clearly who He is and what He can do over and over again; as I’ve seen Jesus demonstrate His faithfulness to a faithless group of Pharisees—even a nation, a particular people He chose for His very own; as I’ve found myself at the same time reading Jeremiah in my quiet time and coming to the same verses used in Mark 8, my heart breaks, and I keep hearing a refrain from a Plumb song: “God, help me!” over and over again with a new understanding of the words.

Some background might be helpful. This past week has felt a little like whiplash in my own life. My husband has felt God’s call on his life to ministry in an official capacity. While he has been ministering to individuals, groups of men and families and missions the whole time I’ve known him (that’s how we ended up together; he ministered to me in my brokenness over 27 years ago), God decided to make this call “official” in the wee hours of Sunday, September 1, 2017.

As he's met and we’ve met with people this week in trying to figure out how this works, what this looks like, how to make sure we are patient and following God’s will, I’ve realized a resistance in me that I never even recognized before now. I have seen my own selfishness, rooted in comfort, protecting my own interests, loving the easy way, avoiding any conflict, insulated. After he told me of his conversation, I have heard my husband’s words to a former pastor echoing through my brain: “How long do I wait for her to be ready?” And all the time, I thought I was fine. Ready. Maybe not eager, but OK. (Here is the big sigh. Ugh!)

And then I continued reading today in my quiet time about a nation of whom God spoke in Jeremiah 5:21-22, “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not; who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear Me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble in My presence?”  And in the next verse, He says, “This people has a stubborn and rebellious heart.”  Earlier in chapter four, He calls them “stupid children” who have no understanding and are incapable of doing good.

Then I see the same passage referenced by Jesus in Mark 8:18 about His own disciples for whom He has demonstrated His immense power over creation and the created, His ability to save, and His ample provision over and over again: “Do you not see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? ‘Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?’ And do you not remember . . .”

I know with everything in me that genuine faith needs no signs. I believe He is a good who can save. Even me. Faith, (a gift by the way, Eph. 2:8), believes Jesus can regardless of circumstances. C.S. Lewis once said, "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." Did I mention I'm not really into painful circumstances? My life has proven that . . .,

I’ve often wondered aloud why people would want to serve a god of their own imaginations, one that is powerless, limited by what can be seen and known and understood by human creation. Yet, isn’t that what I hypocritically do? Attempt to serve God, but in my own way? On my own terms? That’s not faith, and that’s not service. In fact, it is about as far from faith as I can get, and looking at both Jeremiah and Mark, I see that it didn’t work out so well for those generations, and I know that it won’t work out well for me either. So why would I even try? I want to serve a living God. THE living God. LORD. 

I firmly believe that God is the creator of the universe—that He holds it ALL in His hands. How can I not tremble when I see my own sin? How can I not bow down and worship and seek Him with my whole heart? I see so many trying to mold God into what they want Him to be. I absolutely know that is impossible. I read the Word He has left for me, and I see its truth. I now also see my own struggle to apply that truth to myself, but I have to. Application is not optional. It’s necessary. It is hard. I’m feeling broken and hopeful and overwhelmed, and did I mention broken?

This breaking is a good breaking, a necessary one, but it is not ever easy to see oneself the way God does. I’m not sure it is even possible for me to objectively see my sinful nature this side of heaven. The closest I can get is looking at how Jesus views His disciples on earth when they are being stubborn and slow to get what He is trying to teach them. When He looks at me, it is with the same love and compassion (and yes, sometimes probably frustration) at my slowness to get it, my inability to truly see Him as He is. I am limited. He is the I AM.

What I don’t want Him to see when He looks at me is a stubborn, rebellious heart that is far from Him, doing its own thing, worshiping in its own way, honoring with lips but not heart. So my cry today and every day is “God, help me, too!”