Monday Musings on "But, God."

First, you have to know that what I will say has been said before and much better in this post by Desiring God. Jon Bloom and countless others are far better writers than I am.
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Let's start from the beginning.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world...But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:1-7).

I was completely dead in my trespasses -- utterly destroyed by my sin and totally rendered displeasing in the sight of a holy God. This isn't your run-of-the-mill, having-a-bad-day, kicked-three-kittens, secretly-ate-a-dozen-donuts kind of displeasing.

Without God, we are rotted through.* And yet, God loved me with a great love.

The plan was never to leave us in our sins.

But God, being rich in mercy, made us alive together in Christ.

He took us from nothingness and raised us up to be seated with him.

A few months shy of my fifteenth birthday, God radically claimed me. I was sitting at a revival at the Baptist church I was attending, the pastor made an altar call, God clearly spoke to me, and I said, "okay, God." Then I had to walk down in front of the entire church to repent of my sins.

While the first "but, God" happened so many years before my existence, this was my first encounter with a holy Creator's immeasurable riches of grace in kindness.**

Not all my moments of faith have been quite so radical. The last few years have in fact, been many quiet moments of "but, God" steering me away from the rapids of sin without me even realizing how actively He was fighting for my faith. So much of my life points to the fact that my being a Christian doesn't make any sense -- my family is unsaved and hostile to the Gospel, many friends have adamantly walked away from the faith, and yet, here I am.

God has been showing me that the last several years have been a lot less of me stubbornly clinging to Him (of course I would take credit for that. my pride and sin baffle me), and a lot more of Him refusing to let go.

"But, God" is the story of my faith, from beginning to end. I guess that's all I really know.

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*both Crazy Love by Francis Chan and The Jesus Storybook Bible (p. 34-36, 294) describe our rottedness & God's redemption far better than I can. I would suggest both.
**I want to acknowledge that not everyone's conversion is quite so dramatic and yet is STILL completely radical because of God's grace. I think God knew I needed that moment to cling to as I walked back into a family who despises God. The next four years, the beginning years of my faith, were the worst stress/persecution I've ever experienced in my young faith. If I could have chosen, I would have loved to have a never-not-known-God kind of faith story. I think both types of testimonies speak so powerfully to God's plan of immeasurable, unrelenting grace to save His people.