God has been working in my life in many ways, slow and arduous ways by our standards, slow but sure. I have come from lack of belief in God to a growing and more relational way of understanding God over the last two decades.

He let me wander as a young boy before He brought me to Geneva College and really began working on my faith through the loving care of people here in Beaver Falls, Pa. As I grow, life has not become easier, and I’ve had to understand that just because my sins grow in my sight does not inherently mean there are more of them but that God is blessing me with true sight to see what they are to Him.

Finances are a pressing issue in my life, and they’re getting worse. At the trajectory I’m going, I will be destitute and living out of my van sooner than I know. Rock bottom is only getting closer. I can smell the dirt mixed with the gravel. Yet, God is showing me again and again His love. He reminds me that instead of loving what money does and brings, it is actually Him I need to be savoring—like the best batch of stew I ever took a whiff of and tasted. Yet old habits always seem to die hard, and I’m just not getting it through my head and into my heart just how zealously, and how jealously, my God loves and wants me.

Or perhaps my heart is hard, and I haven’t engaged with Him to soften it yet—haven’t let my guard down to know His safety in my places of utter and unyielding fearfulness, surrounded by darkness that scares my inner vulnerability. This is the part of me that has always known hurt and has been abandoned, let down, and disappointed altogether too much.

I have other sins that I’ve come to realize aren’t just things I enjoy illegitimately, or things that I’m addicted to, but are actually whole parts of my life. I’ve become so attached to them through the decades, become so wrapped up in their pseudo-comfort, that I’ve made them part of my very essence and identity. And I never knew I had done this. Now I know why the phrase, “just stop it,” is inadequate.

I know there are other things to come. I haven’t even begun to fully address my eating habits, my lack of physical self-care and exercise, and the total disdain I have for keeping a clean environment. These are all things I know God wants me to steward, yet I often do not. When it comes down to it, I’m a mess.

Yet my God beckons to me with another truth. He shows me hope in calling to me with a loving tenderness that never stops or relents. He woos and allures me, and He tells me He is love and that, by the stripes of His Son who sacrificed Himself for me, I am healed of all my malignancy. He tells me that His love flows as blood over and into me, allowing me to love others. God whispers in my ear how I’m His beloved son and that He is so, so pleased with me.

He tells me that if I just hold onto Him, if I just stay, that He’ll give me the crown of life. If I fight the good fight and run the race so as to win, not boxing and beating at the empty air, that He has treasures for me in heaven and that there is nothing that can take them away. He says He’ll make me an heir with His Son, Jesus, to the kingdom of God! He tells me that I have power and strength, that I am not fearful and timid, and that through His work in me my salvation is made sure and complete by Him.

He also says that if I lose my way, I will find Him again. He says that if I have wandered off and returned to Him, He will return to me, drawing nearer still. And He says that if I seek Him with all my heart, I most assuredly will find Him. Regardless, He protects me. He hedges me in as His most precious possession. I’m the coin that when lost, He tears the whole house apart until I’m found. I’m the sheep who runs his own way, and, every time I get caught in a crag or the marshes, He stops everything to find me wherever I am.

He demonstrates, time and time again, that He loves me this much. He shows that His love for me is beyond the very concept of time itself, because He knew me when I was in darkness and before existence, when the entirety of life was less than a concept because He hadn’t begun His good work of creation yet. He knit me together in my mother’s womb and tells me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. He loves me so much He doesn’t even have to count but instinctively knows the number of hairs on my head. I’m a living masterpiece in creative motion by my God.

The Alpha and the Omega, the great I Am, who was and is and is to come, cares about me! I am of far more worth than many sparrows of the field. I have intrinsic worth and value because I am created in the image of Him who first loved me so that I may in turn love Him back.

I am learning that although I am terrifically flawed in many if not all practical ways, I am still the pearl of great price. Jesus has me, and He has given up His very life because of His love for me. He bought me, and He has made me clean and whiter than snow. I can stand before God the Father amazing, perfect, and unabashedly unashamed.

I am sorry, and I am saddened, that I indeed have so many problems—that I wreck my life so instinctively that it’s like breathing air to do so. It’s second nature. I am deeply troubled and grieved more and more by my sins, but thanks be to God He makes them known. He enables me to cope with such darkness and taint. Thanks be to God that He is my power and grace. Thanks be to God that He makes known the mysteries of the unknown deep within my soul.

I do not want to diminish my sins and their consequences, but I cannot exalt them either. I think I have spent far too long doing so. By dwelling on them as if to bring punishment on myself by them, as if to ensure proper recompense, as if my self-flagellation will appease the morality of God, I only exalt my believed control and power over them. This must all stop. I am to surrender in trust and to obey. It is time for me to live in the freedom and liberty of Christ.

It is from this place I must move. I must settle into a new place of knowing God’s love for me. From this place of knowing God’s love, I must choose not to hate myself, or even love myself how I want, but to love who God says I am. To love who God is making me to be. I am to align myself with Jesus and His truth. In this way, I will find my true delight in Him and the people of His possession.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8).

I’m going to end by referring to 1 John 4:19 to help exemplify the kind of relationship I have, and am continually striving for, with the Lord my God: I love, because my Father first loved me.