On the Road Again. Again.

Have you ever had the experience of God turning your spiritual eyeballs inward and allowing you to see the dark sin within your own heart – something He’s known about all along but for some weird reason you’ve been blissfully unaware of, at least of the depth of it, up to that point? If you’ve been a Christian long enough, you have. And if you haven’t yet, you will. Be prepared. It’s ugly.

Jeremiah knew what he was saying when he said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer. 17:9)

I’ve just recently had that experience. Again. The grief of being made aware of what’s been going on in my own heart for so long is hard to bear. But the hatred of the sin is good and necessary in order to have the desire to turn from it. And conviction always comes wrapped in the sweetness of God’s love to soothe and comfort and reveal that the spiritual sight into the pit was for a good purpose: because the Lord desires to heal me. He wants to remove that which would tear me down and take me away from relationship with Him and replace it with more of Himself. And that can only happen as I become aware of the sin, repent of it, and let God remove it from me.

When I posted the 3rd installment of The Long and Winding Road, I said that the Lord told me at the beginning of the previous year that that would be a year of healing. And indeed it was. But it looks like I’m going in for round 2.

Ding ding. Let the blood, sweat and tears fly.

It seems I was angry at God about things for which I was really angry at people - lots of people through a very long and winding road of a life. And now that God’s healed the relationship between the two of us, I can move forward in letting God heal my heart of the pain now knowing where it really lies.

As I look back on the last year I can see the beauty of God’s plan and why He’s done it this way. There was no way that He could heal my heart of anything until our relationship was healed first.

That is the way of all things in a Believer’s life. The Vertical Relationship must be right before horizontal relationships can be made right. The heart can’t move forward until it moves with God.

Mind you, I wasn’t even completely aware of how much healing my relationship with God needed. I was skipping along through life thinking things were okay. Not perfect, but not that bad.

A couple of days after I got back from the retreat that I talked about in part 5 of The Long and Winding Road, where God had poured out His grace and mercy on me, He once again spoke to me through a song, telling me He wasn’t finished yet. This time He spoke through a band I’d never even heard of before, Sanctus Real. (It’s #10 over in my playlist.)

Whatever You’re Doing

It’s time for healing time to move on

It’s time to fix what’s been broken too long

Time make right what has been wrong

It’s time to find my way to where I belong

There’s a wave that’s crashing over me

All I can do is surrender

Whatever you're doing inside of me

It feels like chaos somehow there’s peace

It’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see

but I’m giving in to something heavenly

Time for a milestone

Time to begin again

Revaluate who I really am

Am I doing everything to follow your will

or just climbing aimlessly over these hills

So show me what it is you want from me

I give everything I surrender...

To...

Time to face up

Clean this old house

Time to breathe in and let everything out

That I’ve wanted to say for so many years

Time to release all my held back tears

Whatever you’re doing inside of me

It feels like chaos but I believe

You’re up to something bigger than me

Larger than life something heavenly

Whatever you’re doing inside of me

It feels like chaos but now I can see

This something bigger than me

Larger than life something heavenly

Something heavenly

It’s time to face up

clean this old house

Time breathe in and let everything out

I heard those words and though I felt a little puzzled by them because I thought God had just done the healing that He wanted to do, I knew God was speaking to me again.

That had just been the tip of the iceberg. And God knew that. And in His perfect timing and loving way, He said it’s time for healing and then He showed me more.

I can’t praise God enough for what He’s done for me, how He’s been there for me, and how much He loves me. And when your spiritual eyeballs get turned inward, He’ll do the same for you.

Jesus is our Shepherd who goes running after His little, lost sheep.

God is our Heavenly Father who protects us and provides for us.

The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, our Teacher, our Counselor and our Prayer Partner.


What else has He been for you?