First Blog

This whole "blogging" phenomenon has intrigued me for awhile. After spending some time on other blogs, I thought I might give it a shot now. I may not be able to post very often, given my time constraints (yes, grad school is as hard as they say it is!), but when a thought strikes me as worth sharing... I will do just that!

Here we go...

"We are fortunate in one respect: God does not appear to us in the way He appeared to Isaiah. Who could stand it? God normally reveals our sinfulness to us a bit at a time. We experience a gradual recognition of our own corruption. God showed Isaiah his corruption all at once. No wonder he was ruined."
-R.C. Sproul

God has been moving in my life lately. There is no doubt about that.

When a person says this, what usually arises in the mind of the modern evangelical Christian? Perhaps very good, and praise-worthy things. Answered prayer. Physical healings. New job. However this is not what God has been doing lately that has caused me to praise His holy and awesome name. No, I say that God has been moving in my life because He has shown Himself infinitely loving in revealing to me how sinful I still am.

Hmmm. "A blog started by a masochist?", you might ask. No: a blog started by somebody who has been given a glimpse of how much God loves him and desires for him to be made whole.

Last Sunday, my pastor gave an analogy during a session in a series called "Gospel Counseling". He took two cups: one full of coffee, the other empty. He shook the first cup; coffee spilled on the floor. "Why is there coffee on the floor?", he asked us. "Because you shook the cup, dummy," we responded. He proceeded to take the other cup, the empty one, and shake it. No coffee on the floor. "Okay. I shook the cup. There's no coffee on the floor. So why did coffee come out of the other cup?" Blank stares. "Coffee came out of the other cup not because I shook it," he continued, "but because it was in the cup in the first place."

When God, in His perfect love, allows us to be shaken with life's challenges, He wants to use these opportunities to teach us... if we will only listen. If God shakes us, and coffee comes out, meaning that we react in undesirable ways, we often blame the shaking itself... or even the Shaker! But we cannot blame the shaking for the coffee on the floor. We must blame the coffee for the coffee on the floor!

God has been shaking me lately, and I have seen the bitter blends of disbelief, pride, and impatience fall to the floor. I wasn't even aware that they were in the cup of my heart until God shook them out. This has caused me to realize that the shaking is good. The coffee isn't good, but the shaking is (James 1:2-4). The coffee has kept me from loving God and others more fully, and I, along with Him, desire to see it all spilled out.

Thank you, my precious Lord, for loving me enough to shake me. I pray that You would not let Your hand off of the cup of my heart until every last drop of the black liquid of my rebellious soul has fallen to the ground.