Hidden and Healed

I ranted and a railed. I screamed and I sobbed. One day it all became too much and I rounded on God with the viciousness of a starved hyena. I was carrying around the weight of the world, the weight of my guilt and my entire existence buckled under the pressure. I could not take one more step. I had nothing left, nothing. I was broken, tortured, laying in a heap at the bottom of the pit.

I started from scratch. I held nothing back. I told the almighty God of the universe, lover of my soul exactly what I thought of Him and exactly where He could stick His love. I was dancing in the raging thunderstorm screaming “STRIKE ME!!!” quite literally. I called on Him to strike me with lightning. I said to Him “ok, if you’re real, then strike me”. I was that low.

And you know what, precious child of the most high God? He did me one better. He knew what I wanted. He knew that I wanted HIM, with that guttural deepest of the deep desire I wanted TRUTH, and truth He gave me.

The old hymn “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock” closes my throat with emotion. He hid me, beneath His almighty hand. In that hiding place He healed me.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble

I tell you all of this so that you will know that He knows. That anger, that bitterness, that hurt that you are pushing deeper and deeper down into your soul, denying its existence to yourself and to Him is no secret to Him. He knows. Nothing you can say to Him, no blackness you can mine up from the depths of your heart with surprise Him and He will not turn from you. The reason I could spit forth all of my vitriol onto my God was because He was there. He was always there.

Hebrews 13:5 Never with I leave you. Never will I forsake you

Luke 5:31-32 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

That blackness will, however, serve as the material from which Satan fashions the bars to imprison you in your own anger, your own guilt, your own pride and the means by which He isolates you.

Here comes the beautiful thing. They are lies. They are all lies.

John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The truth is:

God picked you on purpose

Ephesians 1:4-6 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love het predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Nothing can make God stop loving you

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus loves you as much as God loves Jesus (that's a lot).

John 15:9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

You are forgiven

1 John 2:12 I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

God has prepared good things for you

1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”

Whatever horrible blackness you are running from, no matter how vile your past, is a lie. The almighty God of the universe says that you are His and that you are healed. Praise God!!

Who will you believe?