I am a Christian... and have been for years. About two years ago, I made a huge mistake... I disobeyed God. For my good, He told me "no" about something... something which I had already decided that I wanted anyways. I heard his voice and I consciously decided otherwise... I chose to hold onto what He had told me to let go of.
The funny thing about God is that He can see what we cannot... the future. Before a word is on our tongue, He knows what we are going to say. Before a situation comes our way, He knows how we are going to react. Before a decision has to be made, He knows what we will do. Before a chapter in our lives comes to an end, He knows what will happen and how it will come about.
It is hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that God knew that I would disobey, but He had to if what Psalm 139 says is true. That means that He also knew what would happen in the coming months and years... an unbelievable amount of pain and confusion. I could have avoided most of that, but I decided not to listen.
And it wasn't even as if God only said what He said once. No, He actually said it multiple times and I ignored His words each and every time. Months passed and I continued on, despite the nagging voice telling me to walk away. By then I was so entangled in the situation that I just couldn't... that option seemed way too painful. I kept putting off what God was telling me to do, until the day came that it was no longer I who could even make that decision. Someone else essentially made it for me, in a way that I would never have chosen and that led to the unbelievable amount of pain and confusion that I was talking about.
It wasn't until this week, almost a year and a half later, that I would finally really understand what happened and why. That's a year and a half of pain, confusion and shedding far too many tears as I struggled to find freedom from all of it.
It's really completely incomprehensible... despite the fact that I had disobeyed Him and gotten myself into the mess, God didn't abandon me to deal with the consequences alone. He was very much present and tangibly holding me as I cried probably almost every day for months. The pain was actually debilitating at times... I wasn't myself for months and it was torture to get through the every day things of life. Yet God was there. I don't know why He didn't lift the pain or allow what He finally allowed to happen this week. He didn't do either of those things, but He was always there and He used the situation to draw me forcefully back to Him.
As time went on, the pain eventually subsided but was always there, just below the surface, waiting to be awoken by a thought or a memory. And trust me, it was fairly easily awakened, even a year and a half later. I struggled to find freedom from that which I thought had me chained, but I couldn't. I prayed, I prayed with friends, friends prayed for me, I begged, I read the Bible, friends told me who I am in Christ and what He did for me on the cross, I listened to sermons, I wept, I repented... and the heaviness of the pain was still there. After praying for me one day, one of my friends told me that God had said that the chains were broken. I didn't understand how the chains could be broken but yet still feel so much pain and confusion.
There is so much that I don't understand about God. His timing is perfect and completely beyond my understanding. This week, a year and a half later and still plagued by painful memories, confusion and questions, I was again begging God to do something, to help me, to make it stop. And He did do something... He finally let me have the answers to the questions that I had been asking all along. Answers that actually lifted a weight from my shoulders, dispelled darkness and revealed a light at the end of the dark tunnel.
There is so much that I don't understand about God. His grace is so amazing and undeserved. He rescues us from the pits of hell and despair simply because He loves us more than we could ever attempt to comprehend. He looks at what we have done and forgives us. He gives us life and victory when what we really deserve is death and defeat. He welcomes us home no matter what we've done or how far we've fallen. He showers us with blessings. He never looks at our past or holds it against us.
After I finally had the conversation that I have been wanting to have for the past 18 months, it occurred to me that it was God who had allowed it to happen according to His timing, not mine. There is no logical explanation as to why the other person finally agreed to talk to me after all this time, except to say that just as God hardened and then softened Pharaoh's heart, He did the same in this situation. And everything that He has said since reaffirms again and again who He is and who I am because of what He has done.
I now have this understanding of grace that goes so much deeper than it ever did before. I am overwhelmed by what I know that He has done to rescue me, despite what I did in disobedience to enslave myself. What an amazing God!
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