The other morning I was on my way to work when this song came on the radio. Now you know I love when people tell a great story and this is a great one. It deals with where a lot of us find ourselves as believers. We know we are set free in Christ. We know He has paid the price once and for all and yet within us all is a war, between the new creation and the old one. Worse yet, there are days where it sure feels like the old nature is winning. Temptation is called temptation because it’s tempting.
Now before you begin to wonder, no I’m not headed for a moral failure, or anything like that, by the grace of God, but that’s not the only way the old nature bubbles to the surface. Some days, it’s more about not being able to wait on God to resolve a situation and wanting to take matters into your own hands. Some days it’s about grace and forgiveness being hard to find and harder to give. Some days it’s just knowing that what you think is not lining up with what you know to be God’s heart. Some days you just want to smack somebody. That’s where I’m at and I hate it. It’s at times like these that a song goes beyond music to being a supernatural gift.
I know You’ve washed me white
Turned my darkness into light
I need Your peace to get me through
To get me through this nightI can’t live by what I feel
But by the truth Your word reveals
And I’m not holding onto You
But You’re holding onto me, You’re holding onto me
It’s good to know, isn’t it. In those moments where we feel weak that He holds onto us-sometimes even holds us back. In those moments of deep hurt where none of the solutions are pleasing to God but you can’t wrap your head around grace, God wraps his arms around you. To act on the thoughts would be sin, even the thoughts are sin and you know you shouldn’t go there but it’s hard not to.
He put my sins as far as the east is from the west. It’s literally impossible and that’s the point. We cannot go two directions at once without ripping ourselves in half. So how far are they apart? Infinitely, but I like Mark Hall’s description better, “from one scarred hand to the other.” Jesus came to set us free and in temptation the answer is always the same. You don’t fight it, because you’ll lose. Instead you run away from it and into the nail pierced arms of mercy, of Jesus. That’s where we find rest.
How far? East and West, infinitely, but Jesus is close. Run to him.
AMOKArts 