Taking advantage of a quiet Saturday morning, I grabbed my Bible and journal and headed to our back deck. Underneath our open umbrella, I sat at the table, exhaled, and thanked God for a sanctuary of peace. Honestly, I was a bit "peopled out" from a week of customer service and found myself drinking in the stillness.

Throughout the week, I tend to file things away in the back of my mind, whispering to God, "We need to talk about that." And as an introvert, a couple of weeks without having those divine conversations that allow me to process encounters and experiences, leaves my emotional tank empty.

This day was one of those Saturday mornings to finally sit with God and ask, "What did You think about all that?"

Opening to the book of Ephesians, I was unexpectedly stopped in my tracks by the very first verse. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God..."

"Way to exhibit humility there, Paul," I thought. "How arrogant," I muttered with a snarky eye-roll. Pausing, my mind drifted to people over the years of whom I had made that very assessment.

Trying to lasso in my thoughts, I continued to read. Working my way through the first chapter, the phrases Paul used began to jump out as vigorously as the initial, "by the will of God." "Grace to you...", "He chose us...", "In love, he predestined us...", "to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us...", "In him we have...", "In him we were...", and "I keep asking that God may give you...", "so that you may know him better." 

Unable to escape the question rolling around in my mind, I pulled out my journal and began to write. "How is it that Paul could be so very confident? He knew it was God's will to be an apostle. So unapologetic - so assured of the will of God - and so certain that it brought pleasure to God for him to function as an apostle. Paul even seemed to have the "audacity" to say that God was operating in wisdom, in understanding, and in lavish kindness as He transformed Paul so that Christ would be fully formed in him. And, that grace overflowed in an unquenchable longing for others to receive and to experience it as well. Paul's 'I' and 'me,' always manifested in 'we' and 'us.'"

As I sat quietly, I sensed that the Holy Spirit was excavating a question buried beneath my question. You see, "How is it that Paul could be so very confident," was not the real question. The deeper question in my soul was, "Why do I so often hem-haw, apologize, and tip-toe in my identity in Christ? What would it take for me to confidently say, "Jonathan, encourager of the weary by the will of God"?

In gentleness, the Holy Spirit answered my question with a question. "What if it wasn't arrogance at all? What if Paul simply was assured of who God is and of his identity in Christ? What if Paul was so certain of the nature, the power, the character, and the wisdom of God that he was set free to walk, live, breathe, and move God-consciously, not self-consciously?"

Prodded by the Spirit's loving inquiry, a confession bubbled up from my heart onto the pages of my journal. "There is a place of freedom in which Paul lived that I am longing for. I have had glimpses of it... but the messages of childhood brokenness seem to sabotage the process and I retreat to the world for consolation of that unresolved conflict. Somehow, Paul was oriented to Grace. And that Grace at work in and through his life displaced everything else. It wasn't arrogance, it was assurance."

And there it was: The unspoken thought patterns of years past. In my feeble attempt to express it, I wrote, "People who don't have the freedom of blessed assurance resent people who do have it. And they justify their lack by resisting the humility and brokenness it takes to receive the very thing for which they inwardly long. I resented in other people the very assurance that I was so hungry for and I justified my spiritual poverty by pridefully labeling others as arrogant. I was proud of my 'humility' while dying in my spiritual poverty." Ugh and ouch.

The fruit of Paul's assurance was that he wanted other people to have and experience the same Grace that had transformed his life: that Grace, as Graham Cooke often defines, is "the empowering presence of God that enables you to become everything that God sees when He looks at you."

Paul didn't want to have his own little ministry saying, "Watch me!" Rather, he intentionally petitioned, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation..." Why? "So that you may know him better." Paul doesn't say, "so that you may know Him like I know Him... it's all here in my book." Rather, Paul wanted them to "know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

And while I am still chewing, processing, reflecting, and pondering... God is healing, displacing brokenness, and orienting me to his empowering presence that is enabling me to become everything that God sees when He looks at me. As easily as Paul said, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God," my longing is to walk in the Grace-saturated assurance, "Jonathan, an encourager of the weary by the will of God."

And, my prayer for you? "I ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory - to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him - endless energy, boundless strength!" [Eph 1:19-19 MSG]. May you rest in the embrace of the empowering presence of God who is enabling you to become everything he sees when he looks at you. And may you, being so oriented to that grace, say with blessed assurance, (your name), a(n) ________________ by the will of God." Amen.

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A declaration in song that has helped express my heart when I am feeling particularly broken is Natalie Layne's Fragile. If you click below the video, you will be able to see all of the lyrics to this beautiful confession of dependence.

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