Just
such an exposure to the light came to me by my stress induced heart attack
that occurred November 6th 1994. Since that heart attack,
I’ve come to see my “self,” that is my real condition, in His light and
as He had long seen and known me. The veil has been rolled back to allow me to
now see how I, as an independent self-abled self, who had been attempting
to live my secular and even my Christian life by my self-will and
self-strength; apart from trusting Christ as my all. I saw that my
self-life was one of always trying to control everyone and everything around
me. I saw that it was rooted in my insecurity – because I had not yet come
to trust God for my daily life. Living by self-effort, I was making the Christ
who lives in me essentially of no beneficial effect in my life – and so the
load was heavy. I never found rest when I attempted to fix and control things
on my own. Even when it seemed all was under control, I was still not at rest
for fear that something might be about to go out of my control.
The
day after I left the hospital, after the heart attack, I sat with my Bible
open, seeking Him to show me why such a thing had happened to me. I then felt
I was under His loving divine illuminating radium as He spoke to me saying, “I’ve
dealt with you and your relationship to the world, but now I’m dealing
with your very “self” I did not at that time understand His words
but I melted with tears flowing, as I innately knew that He was not condemning
me, but rather I sensed His unconditional love, and that he was bringing me
onward to know Him in a deeper way. This realization came to me by His
exposing me and diminishing my independent “self,” my self-godhood, which
long had been in the way of my finding rest in Him.
I
had always lived by my own self-strength and control. To understand the basis
of the independent self in a Christian, we must know the true condition of all
men before and after they come to Christ. 1.) We’ve all been raised under a
merit system of sorts, “Little Johnnie or Susie, you do this, and
you’ll get this”. We’ve been trained to “perform” or else. 2.)
We’re all born into this world incomplete until our spiritual rebirthing,
when Christ completes our creation (Col. 2:10). Once and for all, the Fathers
love and grace births Christ into us when we are born of Christ’s Spirit (Jn
3:6, Rom 8:8-10). Yet, glorious as that spiritual rebirth and reconciliation
was for me in 1968, my “soul-self” was still at that time totally in
control and untouched…awaiting His later work of renewal, a “saving of my
soul’s way of living” (Rom 5:10).
Thankfully,
God is faithful to His task of renewing our sick souls. It may come 10, 20 or
30 years after our initial salvation, nevertheless, He is working to set the
stage for the renewing our soul, bringing us into the glorious liberty of the
sons of God. God is at work in those darkest hours of our lives, into which
the light of His life can shine with its divine, curative, radium (His light).
Philippians
2:13 For it is God which worketh in you….
2 Peter 1:19 … ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a
light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day
star arise in your hearts
