Heart Tracks - The Unfixable Place

"When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved." Acts 27:20......"We can't really call God 'Abba, Father,' until we first cry 'Uncle!' " Steven Curtis Chapman

I heard singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman say that it was in the "unfixable" places of his life that he came to truly know the Father. Those places where, like Paul and Luke, all visible hope of deliverance, help, a way out, are gone. Places where we finally reach the point of knowing that there is absolutely nothing we can do to make or change the situation for the better. The place where our every plan, scheme, idea, and ability are for nothing. We are totally helpless in what surely seems to be that which will "bring us down." Until we come to such a place, I believe each of us holds on to the idea that there is still something we can do to turn it all around. Yes, we look to Him and His help, but as we look for the unveiling of His plan, we are also forming our own. Just in case of course. Just in case He doesn't come through as He has promised. We want to have all possibilities covered. We know He's God. We know He's "Father." But we've yet to really experience that as our reality.

Here are some questions to ponder: As concerns our greatest need(s), have we come yet to the place where we have given up all hope of our being able to manufacture our own deliverance? Or, are we still weighing all the possibilities of how we might do that? How we may yet turn it all around. As concerns the insurmountable challenges, threats, giants and mountains we face, and all the frustration, anxiety and fear that they bring, have we yet yielded them all to Him in surrender? As we wrestle with them, are we wrestling with Him? Are we now ready to cry "Uncle" and finally, at last, know Him as Father? A Father not only intimately aware of our every need, but One who has already put in place His "strategy" for bringing about His will for us in the midst of it.

Most likely you have heard that when Jesus cried out "Abba, Father," He was displaying His knowing the Father in the full aspect of His personality. He was His Father in the fullest sense of that word, but He was also His "Daddy" in the most intimate love and affection. As He came to His cross, He knew that. He came in surrender and it was His surrender that yielded such knowledge. It will be so for us as well.

In that storm tossed sea, there was no hope of them being saved. When they faced that, it was the opening of discovering the fullness of His power and personality. It is always at the end of self that we will find the beginning of Him. Have you found that in your "unfixable" place? Are you yet ready to cry "uncle?" Are you ready to cease your wrestling with Him, and simply cling to Him, refusing, as did Jacob, to let go? It was in that place that Jacob finally came to know His God. It was in that place that he received a limp that would mark the rest of his life as one that would depend upon Him alone. Scripture says that in that place he prevailed with God. He prevailed by His surrender. In the unfixable place, He discovered the unconquerable God. Have we? Have you?

Blessings,
Pastor O