The Journey

by Diane Naus, Arizona

•           Who are we In Christ?

•           We are purchased

•           We belong to Him

•           We are brand new

•           We are adopted into the King's family

•           We are children of the living God

•           We are royalty

•           We are forgiven

•           We are saints

•           We please Him

•           We are holy—set apart for sacred use

•           We are cared for

•           We are protected

•           We are comforted

•           We are dearly loved, adored and cherished

•           Beyond measure

•           Beyond comprehension

But . . . we are not God!

I have always known that in my head, but not in my heart. I had to go on a journey to learn it, to move it from my head to my heart.

We all go on a journey. God paints us a picture of our journey using the Jewish people, His chosen ones of old. They are taken captive in Egypt just as we are taken captive by the enemy and made slaves. Then God, at the perfect time, frees the Jews in a mighty way to show His incomparable great power. Each family kills a lamb and sprinkles its blood over their doorposts and the Death Angel passes by them. God takes the "Perfect Lamb" and sprinkles His blood over our hearts and death passes by us. The Jews cross the Red Sea (the color is no accident) into freedom for the first time in 400 years! We cross over as they did into complete freedom. Oh, how we rejoice. But like our spiritual ancestors of old, we have crossed into the wilderness. Soon after crossing, God gave them the law.         

            Deut. 8:2, "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you, in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands." 

            So this test in the wilderness was put there by God. He tests us to see whether or not we will keep His commands. Does God need the test for Himself? Absolutely not. He knows we cannot keep the commands. The test is for us! He needs to prove to us we cannot. Just like the Jews could not keep the law, we cannot live the Christian life. God has to prove it to us using our own failures. We try and we fail and we try and we fail again and again. We complain and we build golden calves. We have to die in the desert. That is its purpose. But oh, how we hang on to our own efforts. Somehow we think it is our responsibility, our job, our assignment to live the Christian life. We spend hours, days, weeks, months and years trying to get it right, to please God. After all, we have great motives. We are so very grateful for our salvation. Somehow, eventually we think we are going to get it right. We always add "with God's help." But it is our own effort (my friend calls it "efforting"). We never arrive. We have to die in the desert.           

            My journey was pretty easy for a long time. I grew up in a believing, loving family. I loved being a good girl. I loved Jesus and I knew He loved me. In retrospect I realize that I wanted from my peers the same sense of security I felt at home. I wanted to be popular, to be wanted, desired, and adored. Ultimately I wanted to be worshiped. I cannot help but think we all do. We just cannot admit it. 

            Then I met Prince Charming. I transferred all that desire for love and acceptance to him. The first 30 years we did life, our "efforting" looked pretty good: four kids, a business, Church, and friends. We were a family, partners, lovers. But flesh is flesh and after 30 years of marriage we lived a year from hell. It did not happen overnight; it had been years in the making. I was trying so hard to get it right. That treadmill is exhausting. I needed to die in the desert.

I heard recently a wonderful quote that rang true for me: "God permits what He hates in order to accomplish what He loves." That is exactly what He did in our lives. God permitted what He could have prevented in order to save us from ourselves. He had saved us from Satan and slavery to sin, and now He would save us from our own "efforting."

God woke me up one morning and told me that I didn't have to be God in my life any longer—now it was His turn.

It was time to cross the Jordan!

There is a Promised Land this side of Heaven. We need only to die to ourselves to cross over. God parts the waters and we cross. So what is this Promised Land this side of Heaven? It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. It is no longer our glory we seek. It is His glory within us to be revealed by Him. Gal 2:20 states: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." In the Promised Land I no longer live my life. He lives His life in me and through me. In becoming Christ-like I am not becoming a little Jesus. I begin to look like Him so that He can express Himself through me. Oh, what a glorious thought. I rest and He lives. The battles are His, and therefore, the victories are His. I take no credit for it all belongs to Him. Jesus said in Matthew that the Kingdom is now.

So what does this Kingdom look like?

•           A kingdom where God is God and we are not.

•           A place of total dependence on Him.

•           A place of total abandonment to His will and His will becomes ours.

•           A place where we don't have to be seen or heard or understood because our

            Savior sees and hears and understands us.

•           A place where even when we can't see Him or feel His presence, we know He is there.                        

•           A place where all responsibility is His.                           

•           A place where all the law of Scripture becomes insight into His heart and teaches us to know Him better.                        

•           A place where the lists of rules fade and His very life, His Spirit, leads us in His

            ways, in His truth, in His life.                                

•           A place where God uses even our mistakes and mess-ups to accomplish His will.          

•           A place where we begin to know who we are in Christ.                                  

•           A place of Sabbath rest every day.                                  

•           A place to sleep in the boat during the storms or even to walk on the waves.        

•           A place of revelation that everything comes through His permission.                                  

•           A place where He wants to tell us we are loved and secure and accepted.            

•           A place where He will love people through us when we don't love them at all.     

•           A place where we can pray, "Father, forgive them because they don't know what

            they are doing," instead of, "Father, help me to forgive." Then He changes our

            unforgiveness into His forgiveness.                               

•           A place where when someone is rude, hurtful, irritating, or even inconvenient, you

            can say, "Thank You, Jesus, for this appointment. Please love them through me."          

•           A place where when you are tired, grouchy, sarcastic, and downright ugly from all

your "efforting," you can say to God with great confidence, "Here, take it all. I'm too

weak and tired even to give it to you, but I know You want to carry it all." And finally,

you know He takes it and you keep moving by faith. You don't feel Him take it, but

you know. Eventually the feelings catch up and you thank Him for all of it.                       

•           Are there Battles in the Promised Land? Yes.                           

•           He may ask us to hold our tongues or shout for joy so that He tears down the walls

            around our hearts we have been building for years.                           

•           He may ask us to give up the devoted thing we hide, and if we refuse we lose and if

            we surrender it to Him we win.

•           He will ask us to give Him our idols. If we try to give them up with our own

            "efforting" they will grow stronger. If we give them to Him, He will demolish them.

•           Every time we take matters back into our own hands it ends in sin.

•           Every time we give our life to Him to manage it ends in victory.

After God woke me on Friday, February 6, 2004, and told me I no longer needed to be God, He spoke Gal. 3:3 to me: "Diane, are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?"

I knew!

•           For the last 11 and a 1/2 years He has been showing me the devoted things I hold

            onto and gently releases my grip and takes them.

•           He has been showing me how intensely He loves me.

•           In the process I have learned Col 3:3, "For you died, and your life is now hidden

            with Christ in God."

•           I am not my own, I was purchased.

•           By the power of the Spirit, Christ lives in me, and He lives out of me.

•           As I learn how much He loves me and know this love that surpasses knowledge, I

            can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:14 & 21) instead of

            the fullness of me.

•           I don't have to live in regret of yesterday or fear of tomorrow because I have Jesus

            today, and He wants to express Himself through me in this moment and every

            moment thereafter.

What a journey. My desert experience was mine and yours is yours. They look different but in so many ways they are the same. Nothing is ever wasted in God's economy. He used it all in my life to reveal Himself to me and He will use it all in your life as well. He uses EVERYTHING. I must have been so stubborn for it to have taken so long, so full of pride and my own "efforting." Every painful moment of my death to self was worth it. To get a glimpse of Him is worth everything. Now I can live in the Kingdom of God and bask in His love and thank Him for everything in my life, because my goal is no longer to be comfortable or even to please Him, because in Christ I do. My goal this side of Heaven is to know Him. I want to know everything that is humanly possible to know. I want to KNOW JESUS! What a journey.