sinking in the presence of the Lord.

I'm struggling this week.

I sometimes get a crippling sense of my own failures in faith. I see that I'm not loving people as I'd like to love them, that I'm not serving Him as I'd like to serve Him, that I'm not believing as firmly as I'd like to believe, and the walls come tumbling down. Of course, some of my concerns are valid. But I think it'd be easier to overcome the failures if I truly understood God's overwhelming love for me.

There's this song, I don't know all the words, but it goes "Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so." It's a children's song, and it's simple, but beautiful. I'd do well, we'd all do well, to hum it to ourselves more often.

A few months ago, I read this book by Charles Fox Parham, one of the fathers of modern day Pentecostalism. He said something really great. Speaking of the confusion and chaos of the second great awakening, and all of the false doctrine, and true but unfamiliar revival going on, he said that he brings all doctrine, all beliefs, all questions, and he continually lays it all at the feet of Christ, trusting that in His great righteousness, He will burn up what is unTruth from His presence, and from our hearts.

I love that so much because he acknowledges that there is ambiguity in our world. There are many things said about Christ. There are many pressures upon us in the modern mental-scape. And even learned men argue over the interpretations of scriptures. So how much more confused are we who are less learned, who don't have the tools or the knowledge to understand our scriptures? But Parham latches on to the answer in Christ. Implicit in his response to the uncertainty of a world in which many, many religious claims are being made, is the idea that we bear witness to a living God, and living scriptures. Through the Spirit, the Bible is not a collection of writings, but a living document--one that works in our hearts as surely as God Himself works over our lives.

I love the idea that we're not at this alone. That above questions of the meaning of the Greek in the New Testament, or how the philosophical milieu in which Paul wrote would have affected his words--above all of that--God is very much alive, and very much interested in burning off from His presence what is unTruth.

I can't pretend to understand how that works. And I'm scared that sometimes, I misunderstand His work in my life. I can be wrong about His word, and His will.

But what a powerful idea. I take all of what I have, all of the doubts, and the questions, and the teachings, and the ideas, and I lay them at His feet. Continually. Daily. And I pray that He would burn up what is unTruth. That through the presence of the living God, I would be set free from my struggles with doubt, with uncertainty.

Though, regardless of my doubt, I know that Jesus loves me. His presence tells me so.