Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Faith and Doubt - The struggle

This morning as I emailed my weekly update to my son Devon who's serving our country in Afghanistan I found myself telling about my work, how much I long to make everything perfect and have someone in authority  recognize how hard I work and express that they are pleased with me and my performance.

As I came into my time with God those thoughts lingered in the back of my mind.  I found myself asking why I have this intense need to please.

It hit me - because I was created to please God.

That driving inner desire to please is not wrong, but I'm working to please the wrong ones.  God is the only One who matters. But then I started crying because I know I'm such a mess up, I fall so very short of God's ways.  I had to remind myself that this is why Jesus came and died in the first place, because no one is good enough.  I reminded myself that His grace is so much bigger than my mess ups.  His love is all consuming.

So I know that He loves me.

But I struggle with if God's pleased with me.

Does anybody else ever have these struggles?
                   I believe that in order for faith to be real, it can not only withstand all my doubts and questions, but grows through them.

1 comment:

Mike said...

This will be a theological answer, but please know I fully understand what you mean by God being pleased with you. My flesh often struggles with that question on a fleshly basis, but this one needs to be answered theologically.

Would God EVER be pleased in anything we do? Ever fully pleased? Do our motives always reflect godliness? Are our hearts always bent on purity? Etc, etc. the answers are plainly "no". Unless we can fully satisfy the law's requiremenrts, we will never please God.

However, there is One who HAS satisfied the law, and He has stood in our place. He has died in our place. He has risen for our life. It is ONLY through Jesus Christ that God is pleased with us. Apart from Him, our "righteousness" is disgusting to God. Therefore, all of our "good deeds", which are still mired in sinful ambition, no matter how good they are, are dung.

So, in answering your question: BECAUSE you have trusted Jesus Christ for the care of your soul, you can rest assured that God is fully pleased with you, because He is fully pleased in His Son!

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