faithfulness

I've been thinking about God's faithfulness lately. I guess mainly because I've been struggling with it a lot. I don't know what's wrong with me, but it's like the last few weeks I've totally forgotten everything I ever knew about His faithfulness. I'm coming back around now, but I feel like I've totally started over with less knowledge than before. :s Maybe it's not so bad though. I mean, maybe it was like I had all these ideas about His faithfulness built up and they seemed really good. However there must have been a serious weakness in there somewhere because I lost it all. I mean all of it. Now I'm starting over and hoping God will build my ideas about His faithfulness stronger this time around.

I think my biggest struggle has been a fear that He will get mad at me and abandon me. I've had a relationship with God long enough to know better. I'm not really sure why my concept of His faithfulness came crashing down. But it did. I was so scared that I would eventually do something bad enough to chase Him away. The fear was taking over. I was distancing myself from Him thinking He would give up on me. However, God's been showing me that He already knows the worst horror I am capable of. He knows more of my worst than I'll ever have opportunity to see. Nothing I do will ever shock Him into changing His mind about loving me.

Something else He showed me was about these verses in John 10:27-29,

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no
one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is
greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's
hand."

No one is strong enough to take me out of His hand - including me. I got this picture the other day while I was asking God to show me His faithfulness again. It's like I was trapped inside this grave (like the kind they had in Jesus' time which was a cave with a HUGE boulder rolled down over the entrance to seal it) and I couldn't move the boulder and free myself. Then Jesus came and moved the boulder for me and let me out. I came out into a beautiful garden where I could be friends with God. After I came out the boulder slid back down into place. No strength of mine can remove the boulder to allow myself to crawl back into the dark grave. I wasn't strong enough to move it away to free myself nor am I strong enough to move it away to imprison myself again. No matter what.

I'm not sure how all of that stands up theologically. It's just that I'm seeing God is faithful. That is His character. It doesn't change. I can be unfaithful, I can be a brat, I can throw a fit, I can walk away from Him, and He will remain solidly faithful. His faithfulness has nothing to do with who I am or how I behave. It's all wrapped up in who He is. I have given my life to Him. I've reminded Him (and me) of that so many times. He is faithful. I may someday forget that I am His, but He will never forget. If I ever fall He will catch me. If I ever give up, He will bring me back. In the past I've feared that one day I would stupidly walk away from God and forget He's the best thing that I've ever known. I'm seeing that if I ever did forget Him, He would not forget me. He would chase me and win my heart back. He would remind me. God is not insecure or easily offended by my weakness, He's bigger than that. He's faithful, longer than the sun and moon, longer than the stars, longer than the galaxies, and certainly longer than my short breath of life. He is faithful beyond the end of time.