i'm uncomfortable in large crowds, i have the tendency to become fidgety when too many people are looking at me, i get overwhelmed in social situations where i have to talk to everyone at once.

   

   However, be all that as it may, i have this streak of recklessness in me. i am thoroughly convinced that the Lord put it there that, in a state of worship, i might learn to be wholly recklessly abandoned unto His purpose and direction, utterly surrendered to Him for the sake of His glory and delight. That's a good reckless. :)

   Though, when not directly meant and intended for Him, what He has purposed to be so very beautiful in its ripe condition, is just foolishness.

 

My greatest failures have always been such very shameful acts of recklessness.

 

   i've spent my last two Christmas breaks at what is called the Denver Christmas Conference, run by Campus Crusade for Christ. Great speakers, emotional music worship, followed by intense discussion with your peers --it's all the stuff you expect out of a college Christian conference. And if you're humble, much like anything involving the Spirit of the Living God, it is so much more than you expect from a college Christian conference...

 

   This past conference, just five months ago, the Lord allowed me to be devastatingly humbled by way of personal failure. i've not been into drugs and drinking since high school. Things like pornography, and drugs, and swearing, bad music and the like, all seem like such demeaning sins, that only real sinners commit... not Spirit-drunk, new creation, believers. i am above these sins, would have been my general attitude to such blatant outward offenses toward the Lord. ...i know, what a self righteous, pretentious thing to think. As it were, the Lord ripped this proud understanding of myself right out of my tithing, modest-dressing, virgin, conservative grip. And He left me to my recklessness.

 

   i was having a particularly intense struggle in my mind over the week of that conference; trying to reconcile in my mind how my good Jesus was one with the Father who had allowed my to be abused as a child. Processing past wounds and present repercussions was too much for me, and i had fought the Lord's help on it much of the week. As the conference was coming to a close, everyone participated in an evangelistic outreach on the second to last night we were there. i'm 20 years old, and i got drunk on New Year's Eve at a Christian conference in Denver, where i was a student leader. Hah, too ironic, right?

 

i could go on and on about all the brokenness and pent up anger and sadness that led me to even drink in the first place... but more important, more glory than gloom to the Lord is this reality that the evening shed light on:

 

 

And you know what that means. It means that our Jesus loves, and loves, and loves us. He didn't love me any less as i stumbled into that crowded hotel trying to sneak into my big sister's room so none of the other students would see, than He loved me this morning when i spent hours at His feet in worship and reverence and fear and faith praying for our Haitian brothers and sisters.

 

"'Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place-- unless you repent.'" (Rev.2:5 NASB.)

 

                                 

 

   i've done worse things. It's not that this is my greatest failure because it was the most terrible offense i've committed against our King Jesus. ...It was the condition of my heart that made it my worst. It was that i'd gotten to the point where i thought i was too good for Jesus... that i didn't need His grace or mercy as much as ever. i forgot my first Love, and that He is my Father who rescues me from myself everyday.

 

   And the redemption was in the remembering. :) i found that at best, i am a child; at a worst, a liar... a fraud. And the devil is known as the greatest deciever of them all... So, that tells me a lot about my state apart from Yahweh.

 

This is the redemption i get to know. He is the I AM. i am not. And when i am human (and i always am) the I AM loves me still.