Jesus is the current...

We are going through one of my favorite concepts as a sermon series right now at church. This concept for me was a huge paradigm shift in my faith. The idea that Jesus not only saves (which is the gospel most of us grow up with) but He also sustains, sanctifies, satisfies, and sends. Words that indicate not only does He provide us eternal security but He also walks this life with us here on earth until we are with him face to face. 

These concepts started to get unpacked for me before we lost Britton. As they got unpacked they opened my eyes to all Jesus has to offer me here on Earth. And he was preparing these concepts in me to soon penetrate my heart.

 After we lost Britton, I KNEW what it meant to have Jesus sustain because we quite literally could not stand on our own feet. Our world had been shattered. 

I KNEW what it was to have Jesus satisfy because nothing, nothing in this world even touched my pain except for him, his word, his presence. He was the only thing that brought some sort of peace to my soul. Everything was so black and white, noise was removed and all I looked for was the face of my creator and sustainer. My gaze was fixed upon him because it had to be. He was the only one with answers that penetrated the deep anguish my soul felt. 

And I KNEW what it meant to be sanctified. 

Now did I like the process of sanctification? No. Did I like the results of sanctification? Yes. Huh? Sometimes sanctification hurts. And frankly, through the process of losing Britton, miscarrying our third, having it take months on end to get pregnant with London, I was tired of being sanctified. It didn’t feel good at all but there was so much beauty in the person Jesus was shaping me to be. The purpose of sanctification is to be made more like him. It’s a continual process of molding, shaping, refining, + loving care by Him so others can see a tiny bit clearer picture of who Jesus is through us so they might be compelled to know him if they don’t already or compelled to deepen their relationship with him if they do. 

Last week my Pastor revisited this concept of sanctification. We are always in the process of being sanctified. I know this. But, what was brought to my attention was the resistance towards sanctification. For many of us, the reason behind that resistance looks different. It could be:

Life looks different than you thought it would at this point in life so your holding on to what you thought it should be....

Frankly you don’t like the direction God is taking your journey....

You wish things in your life could just go away....

You were given something and it was taken away....

Or you were given something and it hasn’t been taken away....

For me it’s the fourth thing. I was given the gift of a daughter but just a week and a half before I was supposed to see her take her first breathe on this Earth she was gone. As we grieved her I knew down the road we would be grieving the hopes and dreams that came with finding out Britton was a girl. I am resisting in some ways the way life is right now because it should be different. And asI’ve entered this new realm of grieving dreams/milestones because they would now be my reality, I’ve felt this resistance. Resistance to having to accept we’re already 5 years in to living without her? Resistance to not having a daughter here to raise? Resistance to the 99% potential of being done with children so I’m gonna have to find a new coping mechanism? I’m not sure exactly what it is but I feel it. And God, who’s always so faithful to walk alongside me in this process, presented me with a visual (because he knows me and knows that I’m a visual person so that’s how He reveals things to me.) Side note-how cool is that? Just reveals his character and commitment to us His children. Okay, back on track:

Here’s what he presented to me. 

A river with a current. No rapids, just a steady current. 

Then enter one of the ultimate forms of resistance. Trying to swim up upstream against the current. Think about the effort it takes to swim against a current. It takes everything in your being to prevent you from going downstream. Your body is working so hard to keep you at bay and eventually you will lose because the current will never stop. 

Current: a body of water moving in a definite direction. Jesus is our current. 

What happens when we release ourselves to the current? The effort is no longer ours and it just takes us. One of Jon and I’s favorite things to do in the summer time is float the river in Leavenworth. Why? Because it is so relaxing to lay on an inner tube and let the current take us. All we have to do is nothing but look at the beautiful creation surrounding us. There’s a sense of peace. 

Jesus is our current.

When we release ourselves to him, the process/situation by which he is sanctifying us, the resistance is no longer there, we get to experience His peace, His efforts not ours, and it frees us up to look around and see all the beauty he has in store for us within the process, making something new. And oh man, to feel that peace of releasing into His current, even for just a moment, is far better than trying to resist it. 

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty you will not drown..." Isaiah 43:2

"For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?  I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." Isaiah 43:19