A prayer

Just left a Bible study on Isaiah that my friend Jim Lees is teaching- thank You for that time, O God of the Angel Armies! Thanks is in my heart and on my tongue: "I thank You!"

For You, O Great Jehovah, lift up the downcast in Your great wisdom and mercy; You, in Your great love for me, reveal to me how desperately I need You!

I find that I am conscientious of my sins in wrong ways. I feel guilty for my sins which is a great sin because it displaces faith in the Perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ with independence. I repent of this, Father. I repent of not believing that You love me wildly even as a flawed sinner. I repent of believing You only love me when I make myself look nice and tidy, when I can 'impress' You.

O LORD, thank You for never turning me away! Thank You for always welcoming me back because You always love me. Even though I relentlessly think that You love me because I'm a pretty good guy... Thank You.

Praise You, One and Only, for accepting my repentance and for faithfully working in my heart!

And now...it is now that I begin to get frantic and want to find something else to do so that I may "escape the knowing gaze of the Almighty."

My shame is my pride, and God loves me no less. Amen.

Joy in the growing

I am not happy, but I am well. This is new to me. I am delighted that I am able to notice the Lord's work in my life. It is not that I have completely ceased trying to make things right on my own. In fact, I'd be stretching the truth to claim that I have even partially ceased trying to make things right myself but I am praying with belief and purposefully trusting that He will make all things right. Yes He will!

I am not happy because, well, things are not as I was hoping or wishing or imagining. In the past I have been in the habit of withdrawing into self-protection and keeping the world out while I supposedly nurse myself back to normal. (Hm. I'm thinking about what I just said: I trusted in no one but myself to heal my sorrows, and would call the end 'recovery' normal. How genuinely rotten, HA!)

Happiness used to mean so much to me. My hopes, my silent, unvoiced, wildly imagined fantastical dreams were idols! When they came to naught, as idols always do, I was left with unfulfilled magic. Why? Because God was not my center, He was not my focus. The only focus which will bring magic in spite of sorrow, disappointment, sadness, suffering or any other kind of trial is Christ, Jesus Christ my Savior, my Rock, my Fortress, my Portion, my Hallelujah!

God is gardening within me. How do I know? Because something is growing that is foreign to this natural, sinful body; something that I have personally tried and tried and tried to muster, to pretend to have but never truly had - faith. It is a rich substance and is fed by a generous Spirit so I have no fear of it running out. Well, in all honesty, I do have a fear of it running dry, but I know and believe that it will not run out. He is a spring of Living Water, no?

This is why I am well: the Lord is my strength, my hope and confidence and I am not merely looking to Him to make me happy as has been my habit. I am not looking to God so that I may be served. I desire God for God, for relationship with Him, and now that I do, I can see that it beats any flimsy dream I've ever imagined. After all we are told that He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20.

Christmas Morning...

How blessed are my days of late. Time with my best friend and his family, time with my Mom and Dad, all my brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces, all of this visiting surrounded and insulated with remembrance of our Savior Jesus Christ. I am rich, and it is a blessing to be reminded what makes one rich.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Everything is changed!

I am beginning a blog. I have considered it for years but now have a great reason to get it going: my life has been upended and this is a good thing! For as long as I can remember I have believed that the Bible is the true Word of God and that God so loved the world that He sent His son to die for us so that by believing in Him, none should perish. That is a pretty amazing concept. Intellectually, I marveled at grace- it's so...undeserved- wow! And love! Jesus loved us and purposed to die for us, give His life for us when we were His enemies.

I could understand all this in a very general sense, God loving the whole world but had never ever felt that I could trust God simply because I didn't believe He loved me.

My heart was hard. At age five I had concluded that God didn't care for me when a doctor told me, just after I'd been diagnosed with diabetes, that when I grew up I would probably go blind and there was a good chance I would lose my feet too. My parents were not in the room when I heard this. The news petrified me: I clearly remember thinking, "Who would ever want to be with that...?" and in so thinking cemented in my mind from the tender age of five that I was unlovable and that not even God must love me.

I have struggled through life in a confused and conflicted blur. For a time I stopped going to church altogether, but thanks be to God, He is faithful when we are not and like a jealous Lover continued to pursue me as I ran from Him. At present I am going through a dynamic Bible study put out by World Harvest Mission called Sonship with my pastor. I had never known how lost and confused I was. My pastor has been so kind and compassionate. He thoughtfully considers all that I share with him. As I recently gave a description of God as I perceived Him through my experience as a five year old, he pointed out with concern that I was was not describing God as the Gospels do. "In fact," he told me, "The god I hear you describe sounds like a tyrant- I don't see why anyone would want to pursue a relationship with a God like that? Why do you?" I had believed some of the lies of the Enemy, of Satan, and had painted in my mind an untrue picture of Him. So what was He really like?

When Jesus had been baptized, God announced aloud to the world, "This is my Son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased." When I realized that this is meant for me personally, I burst into tears! God, well pleased with me? My tears have never had such joy and relief!

So everything is changed now, due to believing the truth: God loves and is personally interested in Jonathan David Nichols. Many new things in my life, chief among them is a concerted effort to develop a real relationship with God now that I know He loves and delights in me. It makes me smile just to type that. I can see that I will continue to struggle with self-condemnation which was something I was an unknowing expert at, but it is such a delight to stop and remind myself, "I am God's son and He is well pleased with me!" I am deepening my faith in God and trusting the Holy Spirit to work in me the change He has promised to bring about. My hard heart is breaking.

It is a journey and I am glad to be upon it knowing myself to be a beloved son of God!