Radiance from desperation

I've been going through a read-through-the-bible-in-a-year plan this month. I've tried it several times in the past, but never stuck with it. What eventually happens is that I skip reading for a day and try to catch up the next day but don't and get overwhelmed and stop it all together. Anyway, this time around is pretty sweet. I read a chapter or two in the Old Testament, a Psalm or Proverb, and a chapter or two in the New Testament.

Today I read some Ezekiel, Psalm 119, and some Ephesians. The stuff in Ezekiel 16 was pretty eye-opening. Basically, its an analogy comparing Unfaithful Jerusalem to a prostitute. Jerusalem is born of pagan parents, not washed and cleaned, nor wrapped in cloths. Rather, like a baby thrown into the field, Jerusalem was despised and desperate.

It gets worse. God passes by and sees Baby Jerusalem lying in its own blood and says, "Live," and Jerusalem becomes beautiful and matures. Later, God covers Jerusalem's shame and marries her. He washes and clothes and heals her. He even adorns her with beautiful jewelery and feeds her the best possible foods. She rises to become a queen and becomes famous for the splendor and perfect beauty given to her by God.

Then, Jerusalem trusts in her own beauty, rather than the redeemer who gave it to her, and she becomes a prostitute to many. She makes idols out of her fine jewelery. She puts her fine clothes on the idols and sacrifices her food to the idols. She even takes the children she bore to God and sacrifices them to these idols, all the while forgetting from what she'd been brought. After all this, still God says"Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you .... Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation."

Then, Ephesians 5:25-27 says,"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."

Wow! What a God! He who made us and brought us into life desperate and pitiful, who chooses us to be His beloved, who gives us to the consequences of our actions so that we'll remember His affections, the God who sees our idolatry over and over, He watches as we give over all the splendors He has bestowed on us. Our purity, our beauty, our jewelery, our food, our children, and our marriages we are willing to sacrifice before our idols. Its making me think about what could be drawing me away from Him today. What's my idol? Is it a house? Is it a car? Is it a status? Or is it a fear of the future, not trusting in Him?

Whatever it is, He gave himself up for us so that we don't have to keep living in desperation, growing farther from Him. He sees that we're sacrificing His blessings to idols, and He takes us, prostitutes, and cleans us with His perfect life to be His radiant bride in an everlasting covenant. I'll trade writhing in misery for becoming a holy and blameless bride. When I let go of my idols, my plans, my will, you'll find me, Radiant.