In a field of
understanding—“salvation”—which ought have no qualifiers—because it is God’s
gift to humankind, through the sacrifice of his only Son—there is one qualifier
for true salvation.
Many have tried without it. I have. I tried for 13 years in
my own strength; I never ‘got’ it. Not until my life had become smashed to
smithereens on the jagged rocks of marital rejection did I come to comprehend,
that, for me, I couldn’t experience the salvation of God until I was heartrendingly broken.
What promised to be the worst
thing I could have possibly imagined turned out to be the best thing. Not that
I can say that without feeling for my children and their loss. That is the only
downside. Still, they have recovered the best I could have hoped.
But I did not know true life until nearly 10 years ago now. Up until then
I was still a shadow of a person; a shadow of the real me. The real ‘me’
desired to be authentic, but my shadow blocked the passage of the courage I
needed just to be myself, to be vulnerable, and to be able to fully trust God,
especially in the midst of my relationships.
The Tenuous Subject of Salvation
In speaking of qualifiers for
salvation I am aware I tread on tremulous territory. Who am I, or anybody else
for that matter, to judge who is saved and who isn’t? Only a person themselves,
and God, could know.
But I see so much now about
salvation—the actual experience as it manifests in everyday life—as I come to
understand that salvation is not just a stake in the ground. It’s a
never-ending race, one day at a time.
Having been broken, and I mean
really broken, to the point where there was nothing left as I kneeled before
the cross, knowing that was the only way forward—the only way out—I was saved; through
the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to take my sin
upon himself, forever stifling its veneer power.
To know the end has come, and a
new life is our only hope; that, for me, is salvation.
When everything else pales into
insignificance, and no one can reconcile our understanding but God himself, we
stand qualified, well
positioned no less, to receive the grace that was always destined for us.
From my vantage point I cannot see
how we could see what we need to receive, let alone receive
it, if we haven’t had a season, which led to a climaxing moment, where all there was, was God.
***
Brokenness is the qualifier of
salvation. The more broken we have become, the more hope we have in experiencing this salvation from God alone. Salvation is
for the weak, not the strong, but, through it, the weak are made stronger than
the strong. They, in their continued brokenness, have God’s unfathomable power
and nothing can touch it.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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