"Truth In Suffering" - JR Everhart

My life is such a bag of contradictions.  I am Roman’s 7 over and over again.  I find myself doing the exact things I do not want to do.  I’m a big ball of unwanted behavior on a multitude of levels.  My sexuality is broken and distorted.  My anger and bitterness rage in me like waves in the ocean, no matter how hard I try to practice self-control.  I am a man out of control in so many ways, and it has created layers of suffering in my life.  That suffering triggers all my self-hatred and shame for the mistakes I’ve made.  And thus, the cycle of shame and sin become my day-to-day life.  I act out from the depths of my suffering and impatience.  I make rash decisions, frustrated with the burden of loneliness and emptiness.  So many times, I walk away from God's direction and pathway - through the valley of the shadow of death - paralyzed with fear before turning right around and walking back into the darkness he delivered me from.  This is only because I am more comfortable with the familiar darkness of bondage than with the unconditional surrender of trusting God.  Trading God's peace and uncomfortable suffering for the enemy’s suffering, which has been like a toxic friend; this has been the track record of most of my adult life.  The enemy tells me God's never going to help me, and I’ve been abandoned by him; left in a desert of my own evil desires.  Trapped in a prison of my own design.  Forever bound to push the rock up the hill - to only get kicked back down the hill - at the first sign of success or victory.  All the while, so lost in such a deep web of lies that I’m ready to sell my birthright for a bowl of soup.  In these times, I can see no good in this world, and that makes me want to try and reach for whatever pleasure I can find on my own.  All and all, I’m exhausted and broken down to the point that I can’t tell which direction is up. 

All of us have felt some form of this within our lives, no one is exempt from it.  Satan pours out his elixir of poison and lies to us all.  The only way out of this pit is through our Savior Jesus.  We really don’t understand what he felt on the cross while crying out to God, “Father why have you forsaken me…” until you’ve looked into the eyes of the enemy’s work - living in you, staring back at you in the mirror and laughing.  That is the bottom of the coal black sin living in our flesh.  It would murder your loved ones and rape your neighbor's teenage daughters if it weren’t for the power of Christ’s work on the cross.  This was the demonic spirituality that ruled Sodom and why God had to destroy that horrible city.  Their sexual sin was only the tip of the iceberg.  If you don’t believe me, ask someone who has come from a foreign land where women and children were abused and killed for sport.  I know it sounds crazy to our western minds, but it happens every day all over the third world.  So many times, I think about how my life would be different had I been born in Somalia or Croatia or even West Africa.  I have so much to be thankful for and am regularly blinded to how good I really have it.  My suffering is so laughable to the suffering of most of today's third world. 

God loves me and pursues me inside my sin every day.  He never gets frustrated with me and always approaches me with gentleness and kindness.  He’s not mad at me or was in anyway surprised by my failures.  His only desire is that I open my eyes and come home to his welcoming arms of love and acceptance.  He’s ready to throw a party and celebrate my return every time I turn to him for forgiveness and restoration.  He never gets tired of picking me up and setting me back on solid ground.  His grace and mercies endure forever and ever.  I am worthy, not because of my behavior but because of Jesus.  King David wasn’t a man after God's own heart because his behavior was perfect.  No, it was because of his desire to repent and live in genuine truth.  God is truth in its purist form, and he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth.  That’s his heart, truth… and we should be chasing after that heart of truth every day.  God's not worried about your failures; he knew you were going to fail before the foundations of the universe.  His desire is for you to live in truth.  Truth about your suffering and sin.  David never tried to justify his sin.  He owned it and ran to the father for restoration desiring to make amends for his wrongs.  He lived in real truth about his human experience.  We are not humans having a spiritual experience.  We are eternal spirits having a human experience.  I have to remind myself of this over and over.  My flesh did not get saved, and it’s not going to heaven.  It’s going back to the dust for which it came from.  We are only aliens here in a strange land that does not like us.  This is the truth David understood and it was these characteristics that God was referring to when he called him a man after his own heart.  Truth… it’s the only way. 

Honest expression about our feelings, failures, and fears is what robs them of their power over us. But instead, we often choose to isolate and push God out of the way of our desires and passions of this world.  This is the foundation of all the enemy’s tactics.  He entices and entices and then laughs at us as we swallow the forbidden fruit.  He slithers away and only returns to deepen the wound after it's had time to fester. 

I 100% know the enemy wants me to kill myself.  All his tactics against me are laser focused on laying a trap of self-hatred and denial until I feel like I have nothing to lose in taking my own life.  I know that sounds extreme, but it’s the reality of my day-to-day life.  I grew up surrounded by suicide, therefore it’s always been on the table; without Christ I would already be dead.  Even now the enemy’s telling me “it’s only a matter of time…”, but I have purpose in this world regardless of the stupid stuff I’ve done.  It’s amazing how quick people forget your mistakes when you just shut up, and put your head down.  We have to get about the father's business.  His grace is and always will be sufficient for all things.  We can’t lose sight of that, or the horror cited above will quickly become our unmanageable reality once again.  Glory to Jesus Christ for he did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.  Hallelujah! 🙌🏻