While running the other day, I was listening to some christian music. Near the end of my run the song “Sweetly Broken” by Jeremy Riddle began playing. I heard the words, “At the cross you beckon me, you draw me gently to my knees” and I felt the Spirit of God speaking to me, welling up inside me. A picture began to form in my mind. I felt as though I could act it out right there in the middle of street , but I refrained and instead prayed my way through it as I finished running.
“Joe, where are you, come to me Joe. I want you here with me.”
I saw Jesus standing at the foot of the actual cross where he suffered. He was calling to me by name, “Joe, where are you, come to me Joe. I want you here with me.” I approached Him broken, and took His hand. He placed His hand upon my shoulder as I fell to my knees. I kneeled before Him, tears streaming down my face, confessing my sin, and worshiping Him, asking Him to guide me, carry me, watch over me, and walk with me. I knew that I could not traverse this world alone. I needed Him. With me I had an unbearably heavy bag. It was full and overflowing. It contained all of my worries, my fears, hurts, and sin. As I kneeled before Him I lifted the bag up to Him. I asked Him to take it from me because I did not have the strength. The weight was too much for me to bear. He took it and said to me, “Joe, I am so glad your here. Now get up. Get up and walk. I will be right here with you carrying that load, forgiving your sin, calming your fears, easing your pain, and giving you joy. Just follow me, come to me, talk to me, live in me. I am always with you.”
I felt lighter after that. I felt joy, peace, and new strength. I wondered why I don’t always go to Him when I should. Why do I continually carry the bag with me and fill it with worry, fear, and sin? Sometimes I allow it to become so heavy it paralyzes me. Then, I am reminded of what Jesus tells us, ”Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30 ESV) and “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27 ESV). Jesus is gentle and humble and He does give us rest and peace. We must seek Him. The kind of seeking I speak of is that desperation. Feeling for Him as though I am blind and lost, without any light. I am on my hands and knees calling out His name and groping the ground for some clue, some direction as to where He is. Our search to be near to Him must be that desperate. We are desperate because apart from Him we know that we are not complete. Acts says, “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (Acts 17:28 ESV) His Spirit lives inside of me. I am made in His image. We move through life together. I cannot even breath without Him. Christ was crucified so that I might be called out of death into life, to live with and for, and through Him until I am physically with Him in eternity. When I live each day like this I am as whole as I can be unitl heaven. I pray the same for you. As strangers and aliens on this earth, as believers, we must do this together.
Do you live in Him, make every movement of your life in Him? Do you know and recognize that you are the offspring of God? That you are created in His image and made to be complete only in Him? This was an experience I will never forget and each time I hear this great song it takes me back to that image and I once again seek after Jesus at the Cross.
Joe
Listen to “Sweetly Broken” by Jeremy Riddle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyJuKHvoPGc&feature=related
