All that is required

This week in our choir we sang an upbeat version of the song, I Will Arise and Go To Jesus.  During one of the practices we were laughing and cracking jokes over this line - Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream.

Don’t be fit.  Ok.  Done.  I can handle that one.

Because we had laughed about it, I started noticing that verse.  You know how it is when you’re learning a new song, you’re worried about notes and timing and pronouncing the words.  And sometimes it takes a few weeks for those words to make it down to your heart.

So on Sunday, when we sang this lovely song, I started looking at those words once more.  

Let not conscience make you linger, 

nor of fitness fondly dream.

It continued on…

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him

Tears welled up in my eyes.  God has been sending me little reminders of His love all week since deciding to write about mental illness and this was one of them.

God doesn’t require me to be perfect.  Or whole.  Or anything that anyone else thinks.  He requires me to feel my need of Him.

I can do that.

In fact, I can do that better than I ever could.  If the only thing required of me is to feel my need of Him, then every trial, every test, every storm, every illness, every hard thing in my life actually brings me closer to the goal.

My need of Jesus was always there.  I was always broken.  But the older I get, the more trials I go through, the more labels that are put on me, the more I see that need.  The more I move toward Jesus.

The first verse of the song says,

Come ye sinners poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore.

Jesus ready stands to save you

Full of pity, love, and power.

I am welcomed here.  Sick, weak, wounded, still, I am welcomed.  All those things about myself that I see as failures or trials are really blessings because they point me back to Him.  The more I see myself, the more I see my need of Jesus.  And the more I see my need of Jesus, the more I run to Him.  And there is no better place than in the arms of my Saviour.

I will arise and go to Jesus

He will embrace me in His arms.

In the arms of my dear Saviour

Oh there are ten thousand charms.