I recently went by the church office to joke with my pastor. I told him I was on the way to commit an act of manual labor and wanted him to talk me out of it. What I really wanted was some comfort. I’ve known the Lord a long time, but I still struggle. Sometimes I wonder if I struggle as badly as I did when I was a new believer. I don’t think so. I began my faith walk struggling with whether or not God was real and whether or not Jesus was the savior. Those questions have been answered. The current struggles are about walking forward and growing deeper.

My humanity, me, keeps getting in the way of what could be a beautiful human image of a Christian testimony and life. I’m on planet earth in my human form. Have I missed it? Am I not doing enough? And many questions just like this, many with the answer, “yes.”  God is so great that He turns those failings into comfort for me and others. My redemption becomes my testimony to Him, even though it is created completely out of my shortcomings. I provide the fertilizer. God provides and grows the flowers. God’s image of a testimony is much better. 

Recently the Lord addressed some  of this internal struggle in an image I had during a church service. The image was of God on His throne with all the glorious golden lights emanating out from Him. The light became separated into golden threads, which pierced the gulf between heaven and earth. Each thread wrapped around a believer and was tied into a knot over the believer’s heart, connecting her/him to God. I could see the thoughts and love of God pulsing through the thread and encouraging, strengthening, and giving insight to the believer’s heart. One thing that puzzled me was that, even as the thread pulled the believer ever closer to the final destination of heaven, the believer was unable to hold on to the thread. He was completely dependent on God’s intent, and God’s knot.

I believe that the Lord works with my cooperation and willingness. He uses my decisions to teach me. However, I am so tied to my own thoughts and understanding that it is easy to be on the way to heaven making mistakes all along the way. Somehow, possibly the reason I became a teacher, I want to be able to understand everything and be able to explain everything. I realize that I am often limiting my own growth because God is beyond my understanding. My need to understand is not necessarily wrong, but it can be a hindrance when trust would be the better choice. God is trustworthy.

I talk about my choosing to be a teacher. Actually that is incorrect. I was unable to get a job, and teaching was the only job which came my way. The job was as desperate for someone to fill it as I was to have it. I spent the next several years, after getting the job, doing everything I could to get out of teaching and find another job. I found I was cemented into that job. I eventually realized that God had put me there for a reason, and the job fit my heart better than the jobs I was chasing. Understanding can become a hindrance. God is trustworthy.

I will always be a step behind God’s plan because He is ahead of wherever I go. I am following Him, not the other way around. What I understand today is less than I will understand as I continue to follow Him. The Lord is taking me into the unknown each day, unknown to me, but well known to Him. My hands-free attachment to the thread of heaven is the knowledge that Jesus has done what I could and can not do with my greatest understanding and greatest effort. I trust Him because He has connected me to Himself. He has tied His salvation line to me knowing that I will be making mistakes all my life, for the rest of my life on earth. He has tied His string of salvation to me so I would not get separated or lost, knowing my humanity, but He is divine. Jesus is completely trustworthy.