I Clawed My Way To You

You can learn a lot about yourself by re-reading old high school journals. I recently found some of mine and was reminded of all of my favorite quotes, song lyrics, books, and movies. Between things I had written myself and things I had copied down from other sources, I could also clearly see the opinion I had of God. One of my favorite songs was “On Distant Shores” by Five Iron Frenzy.

First, a disclaimer: this song is amazing and I still love it. However, the lyrics that I wrote down in my journal didn’t capture the full picture of what the song was saying. Instead, I pulled out the ones that I thought I related to:

With resilience unsurpassed, I clawed my way to you at last.

I identified with those words so strongly, because that’s how it felt to me—like I was constantly exhausting myself trying to get to God. Like I was clawing my way to the cross. I think I believed that after Jesus died on the cross, His pursuit of me stopped there. He had done His part, and it was time to do mine. I felt like I had to be perfect to get to Jesus, and that when I missed the mark, I had to fight my way back to Him.

The enemy used to go before God to accuse us. In Job, scripture says that satan came before God, with the angels, and accused Job of only loving God because of His provision. But satan no longer has that option. He can’t come before the Father to accuse us, because Jesus is seated at the Father’s right-hand and serves, not as our accuser, but as our advocate and our mediator. He speaks in our defense and He fights for us. When we miss the mark, Jesus is there to remind the Father that His sacrifice has already covered us.

“If anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” – 1 John 2:1

Since the enemy can no longer go before the throne to accuse us, he instead comes to us and tries to convince us of his lies. He wants us to believe that we are unworthy. He wants us to believe that we are far away from God and can never get close because we don’t deserve to. He wants us to believe that the veil is still up and that we can’t come before God unless we are holy and perfect.

But God tore the veil for us (Mark 15:38). He chases after us (Psalm 139:7-8). He fights for us (Josh. 23:10). He never stops pursuing us (Luke 15:4-6).

Jesus went to the cross while we were yet sinners. That means that as unrepentant sinners, Jesus fought for us. If He fought for us then, how much more is He going to fight for us now that we are His? If He fought for us when we were dead in our sin, how much more is He going to fight for us now that we’re alive in Him? As a parent, as much as you would fight for any child, how much more would you fight for your own son or daughter?

If we use all of our time and energy trying to meet a standard of perfection that was never meant for us, we won’t have any room left to pursue our calling.

We don’t have to strive to prove our worth and we don’t have to fight to get to Jesus—His love is fighting for us! The lyrics I wrote in my journal today are the ones I am embracing as my truth:

When I was Your foe, still Your love fought for me
You have been so, so good to me
When I felt no worth, You paid it all for me
You have been so, so kind to me

Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

It chases me down, fights ’til I’m found
Leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn’t earn it and I don’t deserve it
Still you give yourself away

Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

There’s no shadow You won’t light up
Mountain You won’t climb up
Coming after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down
Lie You won’t tear down
Coming after me