Journal Entry from 9.3.2007

I've said, "Whatever it takes." And I meant it.

But I hate what it takes, how much it takes. I hate that there is still so much in me that isn't 'Jesus'; how much pride and self-service still surfaces in me. I hate that ferreting it out almost certainly requires pain, and that pain almost certainly means that there is something else to be ferreted out. If it weren't God's hand and God's process, it would be cruel indeed. If Jesus' glory weren't so beautiful and worthy to be reflected, this process would not be worth it. Indeed, if I hadn't seen His glory, the Father's glory in the Son, I do think I would quit.

But I have seen it; I know it to be true and lovely. I know that whatever bit of pain I suffer here and now will be incomparable to the joy and glory yet to be revealed. And so I land at hope...biblical hope--a confidence in what is unseen. Perhaps this is why and how the psalmists almost always seem to end on a note of praise: the price measured against the prize.

Perhaps this is why there is so much discussion in the Scriptures on what is to come, for how can we hope without having a place to focus it? Perhaps this is part of the reason for the pain: it magnifies the prize. The sacrifice shows the value. This is what glorify means. And if this is so, then I land where I started...

Whatever it takes, Lord. No price is too high, though my heart lay trampled on the floor, though all I love is removed, if it brings glory to You, bring it on. Make it so. Though all I ever longed for goes unfulfilled, oh please, glorify Yourself in some small way through me.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. -Romans 8:18

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ... Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -II Corinthians 4:6, 16-18

-J

(c) 2007