Abide

I am convinced that the elemental goal of working out our salvation is realizing that all it requires is to abide in Christ.  That is crux of the matter, which upon first glance can seem too simple, almost anticlimactic, but which in truth is the pinnacle of realization that results in the peace, the joy, and the assurance we spend our whole lives trying to achieve.

I gave my heart to Jesus at the age of six, understanding that God is real, that He sent Jesus to the cross, and that because of Jesus’ death I could invite him into my heart and live for him. 

I would spend the next thirty-five years of my life figuring out the truth of the Gospel, often failing miserably, but inevitably held aloft by the Holy Spirit who was actively pursuing me and leading me toward enlightenment.

At six years old I was told that salvation is a free gift, so I accepted it.  Perhaps one minute into my salvation it became a stranglehold of striving toward perfection that would ultimately choke the life out of me and leave me a tattered shell of self-condemnation. 

Understand that I blame no person nor any institution for my skewed interpretation of God’s Word; rather, my personality has always lent itself to high achievement and expectation, which can quickly result in fear, anxiety, and bitter disappointment.  My thought processes for worldly success became the same perspective I had toward the Gospel, meaning, “Here is an extensive list of what I need to do to be a genuine Christian.”  And when I did not meet the qualifications therein (which occurred every minute of every day), I was a failure. 

In short, I have lived most of my adult life in a state of “not enough.”  Oh, the downward spiral that follows such a belief system: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and perhaps the most frightening – fear of not really being saved.

From college into my adulthood I wrestled.  For years and years and years.  There were moments of happiness, of course, a reprieve from the darkness for a time, then a plunge back into it, leading to all kinds of stress-related habits and thoughts.  Living in a perpetual state of inadequacy leads to quite a lot of turmoil both outwardly and inwardly.  Going into how it manifested in my life is a whole other blog post.  For now, I look at what was going on spiritually.  There have been numerous phases, all attempts at “fixing” what was wrong.  They have come and gone in waves, repeating and cycling through like the rise and fall of the tides.  Here are a few.

Phase 1: reading the Bible as a pamphlet for self-improvement.  I still have the Bible where I circled the fruit of the Spirit that I needed to work on.  Yes, the fruit of the SPIRIT.  But to me, it read “the fruit of MANDI.”  How MANDI can be a good Christian.  Needless to say, I never conquered any of them.  End result: failure.

Phase 2: working to discover the spiritual puzzle piece that I must be missing.  I remember literally waking up one morning while in college, deciding “Today I am going to focus completely on other people.  That’s what I’m missing.”  So I went about my day in that mindset.  It lasted that long, a day.  I couldn’t maintain it, and peace was nowhere to be found.  End result: failure.

Phase 3: to hell with all of it.  Later, when I was married, I went through a spiritual phase of ignoring God altogether (though I still went to church and played the part), having grown exceedingly tired of trying and failing and trying and failing.  My viewpoint: “Enough.  I’ll live uncontained and on my own, free from the expectations that have so long consumed me.”  And for a time I did experience a sort of freedom and lightness of spirit.  (Not surprising considering the spiritual prison I had formerly put myself in.)  But the relief from anxiety was superficial. The end result: failure. 

Phase 4: try again.  Read the Bible, have the traditional quiet time, pray more, read Christian books, and try like mad to fight the anxiety.  I knew in my head what I needed.  But I still could not understand why none of it was bringing me peace, why I still wrestled with anxiety and fear and doubt.  Wasn’t I doing all the things?  End result: failure.

There are things we learn along life’s way that can only be attributed to God’s revealing them to us.  Messages.  Lessons.  Insights.  Nuggets of Truth.  God has sprinkled my path with these for 35 years (since accepting Christ), little things that reveal who He is and how He loves.  But how long it takes for the messages to break through our human barriers of fear and doubt is different for everyone.  I chuckle as I think of myself as one of the tougher nuts to crack.

I’m a One on the Enneagram.  If you’ve never heard of the Enneagram, look it up.  Definitely insightful.  An Enneagram One is labeled “The Perfectionist.”  And while you might not like labels, we all have a motivation for how we interact with the world.  Mine is perfectionism.  In the book The Road Back to You (Cron and Stabile), unhealthy Ones are said to “fixate on small imperfections” and “are obsessed with micromanaging what they can.  Asserting control over something or someone is their only relief.” (page 91)

My path has been lined with ways to control.  From trying to control my own behaviors (a sort of sadist attempt at self-discipline), to control how others perceive me (a ridiculous goal to be sure – hey, let me jump in your brain and push the buttons necessary for you to admire me), to controlling my chances of success by avoiding anything that may lead to failure (well, that’s pretty much anything in life so I guess I better just sleep all the time).

The root of the problem (“problem” being that thing that I just couldn’t identify, that I’ve fought against my whole life, the thing that has driven me to hopelessness time and again), slowly revealed itself to me: control.  Ironic that the thing that has bound me is not even a tangible rope that can be unknotted, but a myth, one of the deepest lies that Satan uses to keep God’s children in a state of turbulence and turn their minds inward where rot and filth abound. 

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12 

I am convinced that the elemental goal of working out our salvation is realizing that all it requires is to abide in Christ.  Therefore, Phase 5, were I to call it that, must be relinquishing control.

You know, you can read the Bible over and over again and the same message is there on every page, yet you somehow see past it.  It’s the phenomenon of not seeing the forest for the trees.  God has been whispering a word to me for years now: Good.  It is Good, Mandi.  My Word is Good.  I am Good.  It is all Good.

For 35 years God has been sending me this message in a million different ways.  I’ve heard it, I’ve felt it, though at times I couldn’t see it at all. 

And how about this one?  The Bible is not about ME.  The Bible is all about Jesus.  All of it.  The Old Testament is exhaustive in its rules and regulations that we can never keep!  Thus, we need a Savior to fulfill a Law that we can never fulfill.  The New Testament is what God does to solve the problem: Jesus. 

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

And then there’s this little thing called God’s Love.  He loves me beyond what is rational, to the point of aching for me, dying for me. 

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

All of these verses I have read since I was kid.  I understood them enough to accept God’s free gift of salvation.  Now I am beginning to understand them enough to live in that salvation.  Not by striving or doing or seeking or any action verb at all, unless you count “abiding” as an action verb. 

“I am the vine, you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:5

Is that all?  Could that possibly be it?  Just to abide?

Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3 “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  This could mean a lot of things, but one word that comes to mind when I think of children is “simple.”  Young children accept the truth without cynicism, they have yet to step into self-awareness, they embody joy before it is tainted by worldly cares, and they crave love.  In a nutshell, children live simply and unabashedly. 

Every Christian has his own road to travel for growing in the Lord and working out his salvation.  Mine has been a journey of learning to let go.  I imagine fists clenching tightly to everything I long to control, all the while Jesus gently prodding me to open up my hands and lay it all down.  It was never mine to begin with.  The faith I had as a six year old got pretty banged up along life’s way, and when I felt like I was such a failure at Christianity, that I might not be saved at all, I had forgotten who God really is and what He really wants from us.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

God didn’t give me a free gift of salvation to then turn around and say “Ok, now act like a Christian.”  I didn’t get it.  I didn’t realize the life-giving FREEDOM of abiding in Christ.  Sitting with him, like a child sitting on her daddy’s lap. 

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

Through all the turmoil, all the pain, all the confusion and crying out to God, He has been waiting and listening and loving.  We must come to the end of ourselves before we see what has been in front of us all along.  It comes back to faith in God; do I really trust that God will hold me?  Do I truly believe His way is best?

One of the latest messages I have received from God is this: “You’re fighting the wrong battle.”  I have spent my life trying to fix myself and put myself together as a person worthy of salvation, and, oh, the heartache of never overcoming my faults.  I am broken, I am sinful, I am deserving of eternal separation from God.  Of course I am:  “There is no one righteous, not even one,” remember?

Father God, you saved me when I was six years old.  Somewhere along the way I forgot that salvation is a free gift, and I began beating myself into a life of self-sacrifice and human perfection that could never be achieved.  I was convinced I was a complete failure and therefore, how could I be sure I was even saved?  Maybe I missed a step in the “Roman Road” or something.  And I knew I was trying to control my own life instead of letting You.  I held on tight to everything in my reach because I was so afraid I would be hurt or lose control.   I thought I had to DO so many things and BE a person I could never, ever be.  There’s just too much selfishness, too much pride, and a stubborn heart to boot.

God, I still struggle.  I have lived with these feelings for so long that they have carved pathways in my psyche that can only be redirected by prayer and the truth of Your Word.  But I hear You, God.  I hear You whispering It is GOOD.  I hear You say “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), and that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

I open my hands to You, asking You to take all that I have held on to for so long.  Asking You to remind me every day that all You require of me is for me to love and trust You.  And out of that, everything else will grow.  For it is the work of Your SPIRIT that lives out salvation in me because my flesh simply cannot.  You never asked us to do it on our own; no, You sent Jesus to do it all for us that we would never have to strive again.  Because of his sacrifice, we get to live in freedom and reward, enjoying a personal relationship with You.

It’s all about You, Lord.  It’s not about me at all.  And because of that I can rest in the assurance of my salvation.  You called me to You, and I can do absolutely nothing to mess that up.  I’m just not powerful enough.  Praise Jesus!

It’s a joke that the Sunday School answer is always “Jesus.”  And low and behold, after years of frantic searching, I learn that it is indeed.  God, help me lean into Jesus as my Answer.  Please give me faith, Lord, to believe in Your love for me and to rest in it every day without anxiety.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:6-7.

I am convinced that the elemental goal of working out our salvation is realizing that all it requires is to abide in Christ.  My faith journey has led me here, where Peace was waiting all along.

There will be days I forget who God truly is, my faith will waiver, those old neurological pathways will beckon me back, and a million other things.  But the Truth never changes; I can always return to Him and say once again, “I can’t.”  And He will say, a million times over, “I know.  That’s why I do it for you, Mandi.  Abide with me, my sweet child, just abide.”