Stop.
What keeps you from honestly singing "my heart and my flesh thirst for the living God?" Why do you sing it often and yet never mean it - not just some days, which is good for you, or most days, which seems unreachable, but every day. What is wrong with you? Is it because you are not a Proverbs 31 woman, or because you do not love as 1 Corinthians 13 says, or because Psalm 15 does not accurately portray you? ...well, yes, you say. Your lack of holiness keeps you from being holy, from worshiping as someone who truly loves God. That much is obvious.
You say: yes, and that is good to know. So I suppose you shall now endeavor to be a Proverbs 31 woman. You'll probably go about quoting it in your emails and half-heartedly try to memorize it by heart and make catchy Flair buttons on Facebook to demonstrate your sincerity. And that could be great. That could be utterly useful.
So why is it so totally useless?
The answer is this: just quit. If you are trying to be a Proverbs 31 woman, or a Psalm 15 man, or whatever, stop. Stop trying. Don't throw it away altogether, but start someplace else. Don't start with Proverbs 31 - it provides a standard, which is useful but not in and of itself. Romans 8:3 says: For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. If you won't start with what He has done, you might as well quit altogether. You must either come in by the Gate He has provided, or enter as a thief and a liar.
There is something Proverbs 31 cannot do for you, something that must be done first. It cannot be the Gate. Seek that right entrance. Think of yourself as a Matthew 27:51 Christian.
Do you know what Matthew 27:51 says? No. You don't. That is what keeps you from understanding the love of God, what keeps you from drawing near to the throne of grace with boldness, what keeps you from holding yourself to standards greater than your own, what keeps you out of holiness.
Matthew 27:51 is the grace and love of God poured out upon sinners. Matthew 27:51 is the removal of shame and guilt. Matthew 27:51 is God inviting man into his very presence.
...and you don't know what it says?
Really, Anna, I'm surprised. I'm flabbergasted. You do know what it says, of course - as soon as I read it to you you'll smack your forehead and say "Oh, yes, I know that. Of course that happened." Because you know your Bible so well - but you don't really know it.
I don't want you to know it that way. I want you to know it so keenly that you are defined by it - I want the knowledge of this as it applies directly to you to overflow into your life, into your prayer time and your bible reading time and your fastings and your repentings and your resisting-temptations, and I don't want you to know yourself by all the quiet times and good deeds and sin-fighting, I want you to know those times by this.
Take Matthew 27:51, and ponder it, Anna, when you are at the bottom of what seems to be the blackest pit despair can build.
Ponder when in the selfish arrogance of your heart you have supposed that your sin is greater than the love of God.
Remember it when holiness eludes you and sin snares you once again.
Meditate on it when you survey your soul and find it very bent indeed, so bent away from the nature of God that you could never look on His face and live.
Rejoice in it when it seems the church is dead and forsaken, when a relationship has been fractured beyond all imaginable means of reparation, when father and mother forsake you and you begin to wish you could forsake yourself, when there is no strength for the weak limbs and feeble joints.
Ponder this:
AND BEHOLD, THE CURTAIN OF THE TEMPLE WAS TORN IN TWO, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM. AND THE EARTH SHOOK, AND THE ROCKS SPLIT.
This is you.
The curtain is torn. Christ has done this on your behalf, so that you might enter the presence of God by His works and His righteousness, and there is no sin you can think or commit that can mend the tear or alter this fact in any way.
Your earth has been shaken, your dead-rock heart split to the core and turned to a living, hopeful rose, and your God lives.
"I will GREATLY rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall EXULT in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." Is. 61:10
It reminds me of something I read last night when I was writing.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 if your wondering.
You have it I think. We just need to stop. Stop trying and start relying more fully on God.
Sounds great. Now we just have to start
I was wanting to make some glib remark about me not being a Proverbs 31 woman either, but I tripped on and turned back toward the unique thought that inevitably reveals itself and trips me in so many of your pieces. That thought in this piece was "...and I don't want you to know yourself by all the quiet times and good deeds and sin-fighting, I want you to know those times by this." The ink in Inky's pen sometimes burns like a living, hopeful rose, indeed. :)
I love it when you write reflections like these on yourself and God, because they always keenly remind me of myself. I wonder why? Could it be because we're related? Anyway, thank you so much for posting this. I need things like this during to the day to turn my focus to where it needs to be...and I wholeheartedly apologize for not checking your blog in something close to a million years.
God bless! <3