Exile

I am the exile, the rejected desert-wanderer who experiences God as inconsistent, controlling, violent and retributive. I have lived my life in an endlessly repeated cycle of love and devotion followed by idolatry, shame and punishment. They say I am a child of God, but how long have I lived under Moses, my accuser?

I was born into exile. I choose to wander through life, sometimes led by God and other times off on my own doing whatever the hell I want. Until I remember my God and terror and deep shame fill my heart. I realize that my miserable existence is really only my fault. My sin is everywhere and it has separated me from the God I really do love. If I will only turn from my sin and come back to Him, He will heal me!!!

So I come to His temple and sacrifice AGAIN. Even though by now I don’t even feel like doing that because…I KNOW myself. I’m a filthy person. All I can ever do is the wrong thing. It’s true. This endless cycle of sin, shame, forgiveness, fear, sin, shame, forgiveness, fear….who can save me from this torment??????

I need a savior. I can’t do this by myself. Even though I am absolutely petrified of my God, I do believe He is the one true God. At my core…I am His beloved, His chosen…right? If He knows me, He must know I am broken. He must be planning to save me. I will wait.

And then one day, it happens. The Meeting. It has been what I longed for my entire life, and yet the timing is perfect. I am meeting God…but not yet face to face. The thing is, I can’t look at Him. The instant I became aware of His presence, I fell to the ground in holy reverence. This is the God I have known about my entire life. The God I have loved and left. The God who has been patient, yet angry with me all along. The only way I can even stand in His presence is through the tiniest bit of faith that He does indeed love me. He has to, right? I’m still alive and He hasn’t killed me in wrath yet!

Maybe this is it, though. Maybe He has come and revealed Himself to me, only to finally give me what I deserve. Judgement Day. I try to think of reasons He might let me live…but even my best moments now seem like filthy rags. I don’t stand a chance. My past haunts my mind. All of my failures laugh in my face and I’m reminded about all of the times I abandoned my God. All of the times I deliberately disobeyed Him. All of the times I forsook the covenant of love and blessing He tried to make with me. It’s horrifying. I have made a complete mockery of God.

Now, in His presence, I realize the full weight of my sin. I am a slave to it! I know He loves me, and yet I am powerless to truly obey Him. It’s hopeless.

But He hasn’t left. I realize that I have spent a very long, but unknown amount of time on the ground, trembling in fear and hatred for myself. But, He is still there. Slowly, I lift my eyes, inch by inch from the floor beneath me. He is kneeling. GOD! God is kneeling. Probably getting down low enough so that He can slit my throat Himself, and give the final blow of judgement. I still haven’t been able to move when all of a sudden, I feel Him gently touch my chin. He wants me to look into His eyes.

Oh no. This is the King of the Universe. I’ve read about Him, and people have described Him to me. His eyes burn like fire, His breath is like hot billows of smoke. Maybe that’s how I’ll finally go out. Locked in His majestic gaze and burned right up. I accept it. I’m ready, anyway. I can’t go on anymore. I’ll never get out of this desert.

So I look. I see Him, for the first time, with my own eyes. But…He is a man! He looks completely ordinary! I had imagined a King with light beams shooting out of Him.
I don’t know what to say.

“Are you God??” What a stupid question.

“I am Yeshua. I have come to reveal God to you. I’ve come to save you, Mary.”

It is there, in His eyes, that I encounter a love so intense that it defies common sense. Most of all, it defies spiritual sense. I have not held up my end of the bargain. I have loved Him, but I have also been disobedient. I have tasted His goodness and run off looking for goodness elsewhere. I have made idols. I have dragged His holy name through the mud. I have forsaken Him, too many times.

I cannot bear to look into His eyes of love for one more moment. All I feel is hatred for myself. Discouragement swallows my heart whole. Now that I have MET God face to face and FELT His love, I know that I will never be able to come close to Him ever again. I’m not like Him. All of my efforts to be righteous now seem beyond ridiculous. I’d rather just die than try for one more day to earn His favor.

I manage to hold His gaze for one more second. As if He knows that I am about to turn my face in utter shame and despair, He places both hands on my shoulders and begins to lift me up. Fear and excitement rush through my heart. He stands me up. He stares into my eyes for a long, piercing moment and just as I am convinced that rejection and death are finally coming…He pulls me into an embrace. It is unlike any embrace I have ever felt. Oh, my. I have been so so wrong about Him!

It’s the embrace of a lover who has searched a lifetime for their mate. The embrace of a Father whose child has been missing since birth. I wasn’t prepared for this. My arms still remain at my sides, in shock. Suddenly, my life begins to flash before my eyes. Is this death? I see every moment of my life thus far…every song to God, every Bible verse memorized, every prayer at the altar, every lie, every mistake, every hurt…every…single…moment.

In this embrace, our heartbeats find each other’s and I notice their slowing rhythm. I know that I am dying….but so is He? Is this some cruel trick? Has He shown me a reel of my wretched life as a way to kill me? Or is He the one dying?? My heart stutters into what I realize is its final beat, and in that moment the memories of my life shift.

Only now, on the verge of death, I can REALLY see. This man named Yeshua was with me, in my exile, the entirety of my life. He had never left me. Each memory shows the truth. He was with me in the desert. He was with me in my sin. He was with me as I sacrificed and He was still with me when I rebelled. He had been there all along! He had loved me fiercely all along. And now He was asking me to die with Him.

What an odd sensation it is fall into real, raw love. It is so intense and overpowering that you will lay down your very life if that is what it takes to receive it fully. No questions asked. I realize that He has already done this. How can it be?!?!? If it’s true that He has known and loved me like this my whole life, I will die with Him if that is the way to knowing and loving HIM.

And so it is there, in an embrace with Love Itself, that I release my life. I die with Him. But death is not what I expected. In fact, it is nothing but a passing shadow. How silly that we all fear it so! I have somehow passed from life to death…and back to life again. All in one moment, all in His tight embrace.

Of course. How could I remain dead when I am embracing Life Itself! How could I remain lost when I am this close to the Way? How could I possibly believe more lies when I am connected to the very source of Truth? How could I ever hate myself again when I have embraced Divine Love?! He has always loved me, never left me, descended to my Hell-on-earth, brought the keys to release my chains and fought on my behalf. He paid the debt that I could never pay. He rescued me from despair. Sin is crushed under His feet. It was the plan all along.

I realize it all in the span of a moment. I am His beloved. My arms wrap around His frame. So humble. So human, and yet so Divine. I embrace Him and I know with certainty that I will never, ever let go. For the first time, I’m alive. I will never be the same. This is only the beginning. ❤️