writing a psalm of redemption

Three years ago, I  was challenged to write a psalm to God as a reaction to my journey studying the story of the Exodus in a bible study. I stumbled across it again today while I was unpacking and wanted to share:

God, you are the God who brought me out of Egypt. I didn’t even realize I was a slave. I have spent so many years believing lies about who you are, about who I am, and about the weight of my sin. I have allowed normal desires for love and acceptance to grow into monsters. I have lived to earn the approval of the people around me and worked to make other people like me. The monsters have grown with the depth of my sin, and I’ve come to find my identity and my worth in how well or how poorly I measure up to human expectations. Instead of running to you when I sin, I’ve tried to pay off my debt with better behaviors and self punishment. God forgive me. Now I can see just how strong of a hold Egypt has on my heart.

I’ve believed for a long time that if I didn’t talk about something, it meant it wasn’t true. Now I can see that it only meant the grip it had on me was tighter than I ever could have imagined. It has prevented me from fully healing from wounds of the past and from fully experiencing your beautiful and freeing forgiveness myself and from sharing it with others. Please help me to live daily in the shadow of the cross an the knowledge of the precious grace and mercy you offer to me. Please remind me of your love.

I know you say “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name, you are mine.” You tell me that I am “precious and honored in your sight and because you love me, you gave Christ in exchange for my life.” You say that I am more than my choices, more than all of my past sins, more than the problems I create, that you’ve renewed and remade me. You say that my identity is found in you. You say that my worth is in who you say I am. And even though I know all of this, I can still hear the lies that the enemy whispers, the half-truths that fill me with shame. Please silence the whispers and help me to know in the depths of my soul that my sin and my shame do not define me and that there is no more condemnation.

Please hold tight to me when life gets hard, when I can’t see where we are going, and I don’t understand what you are doing. It is so sad to realize just how much of an Israelite I am. Even after seeing the enormity of your power to save me and change me, I still struggle to trust you with everything and I doubt the good you have planned for me. I run to other things and other people for comfort and control. When I trade your truth for these lies, I only hurt you and everyone around me, and find myself more empty than when I started. Forgive me and teach me how to be completely satisfied in you. Show me how to be content where you have me, and to believe that the live you have for me is better than the life I could create myself. Thank you for your love, your grace, and your compassion. Thank you for saving me before I even knew I needed to be saved. Thank you for the healing you are working out in my life. Thank you for your patience, forgiveness, and gentle correction. Please help me to walk in the freedom you have given me.

picture of redemption

Mike Wilkerson wrote much of the content of the Mars Hill Church Redemption Group material. This particular section hits home every single time I read it.

Faith is about evidence. If our primary evidence that God is at work is based on our circumstances, then our faith is strained when we are blindsided by circumstances that fail to meet our expectations. God’s picture of redemption is not always the one we’ve imagined.

So what do you do when your hopes are dashed, when your faith is challenged by a devastating turn of events? How do you feel? Do you cry out to God for rescue? Do you continue to trust his promise of redemption? Or do you make a deal with God, painting a picture of redemption you can tolerate, saying: “as long as it looks like this, I’ll follow you?” Do you wander from God in search of comfort and refuge elsewhere? Perhaps even back to the very things that have enslaved you?

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It’s all about weighing the evidence. We weigh the evidence of God’s character, promises, and track record, against the present circumstances we face and our fears of what might happen. To hold our picture of redemption out to God and say “save me like this” doesn’t require nearly as much faith as saying, “I know you’re good, save me like you want to.”

So we stand at a crossroads, and here is our dilemma: God is unseen, while present circumstances stare us in the face and our fears are palpable.