Musings

I have tried to please You for so long
Relied on my own strength
What is grace?
It seems it’s lost its meaning

So I have failed at every attempt
Found myself losing sight of who You are
The lover of this broken soul

But this is what I’ve learned
To try is to fail
To trust is to heal
And in You I’ve overcome
Cause You paid the way and conquered the grave
And in You I’ll overcome these fears

I have thought a time or two
That drawing near to You
Would be so hard to do
For how could I deserve this love?

But You have proved yourself time and again
What is grace if there’s no sin?
Thank you for coming to save the sick

This is what I’ve learned
To try is to fail
To trust is to heal
And in You I’ve overcome
Cause You paid the way and conquered the grave
And in You I’ll overcome
These fears, these trials, these dark, lonely nights
How beautiful to see

Strength made perfect in weakness
Made perfect
Your strength made perfect in weakness
Made perfect
Your strength made perfect in weakness
Made perfect
Your strength made perfect in my weakness
My weakness

This song has been speaking to me this entire weekend.

How many times do we try to “earn” God’s love? We try to read the Bible everyday, pray everyday, diagnose our spiritual life to figure out what is wrong in order to “earn” God’s love. All these efforts to earn His love is tiring, restless, and frustrating because often times we end up no closer than where we started.

This weekend, I realized that I was in some sort of slump with God. Not progressing. Stagnant. Lukewarm. Upon realizing this, I racked my own brains for ideas as to  what I could possibly be doing or not doing that is slipping me into this disgusting pit of apathy.

To try is to fail
To trust is to heal
And in You I’ve overcome
Cause You paid the way and conquered the grave

It’s funny because as I’m trying to figure out why God is not near me and do all that I can to stay by His side, I start to walk away from Him. The Holy Spirit is already with me. No amount of sin could possibly cause Him to turn away from me—He already did that to someone: Jesus.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is,“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

—Matthew 27:46

I have yet to fully comprehend that it is completely impossible for me to earn or keep God’s love, or to prevent God from leaving me. When I fall into the idea that I need to do this or do that so that I can experience God, I place God into a formula that I can understand. But God does not fit into any man-made formula. I try to comprehend God’s love so often, but I forget that His unfailing love will never make sense to me. It will never make sense to me that God still wants anything to do with us even though we sin against Him and reject Him time and time again.

But He does.

Whenever I try to earn God’s love I experience utter restlessness. It’s tiring, exhausting. I’m trying to obtain the unobtainable. When I try to earn God’s love, I’m telling Jesus that His death and resurrection on the cross was not enough for me, and that I need to do something to make up for His inefficiencies on the cross.

Just thinking that makes me sick inside. How dare I.

Jesus, teach me how to simply receive your love and receive your grace. It is enough.

(Source: Spotify)