Today I began refreshing my blog site and refining its theme. Whereas previously it was “truth be told,” that theme seems to be a bit broad. Plus, I’m seeing many cranky “truth-tellers” out there in the blogosphere! What people need today is gospel encouragement. Hence I have created a new blog title that is both an acronym and an exhortation:
G.E.T.
Gospel Encouragement Today
Social media is flooded with negativity. My goal is to stem the tide, and hopefully turn it, by posting daily doses of gospel encouragement. Most of these will be based on my daily readings, personal experiences, and interactions with others.
Today’s post is titled “Charlotte’s Web.” I’m not referring to the children’s novel by E. B. White, but an altogether different web in which a woman named Charlotte Elliot was entangled. Like many people today, Charlotte “suffered from chronic pain, depression, and feelings of uselessness.” I read about this poor lady, who lived in the 1800s, in Shelby Abbott’s brand new book, DoubtLess: Because Faith Is Hard.
In recounting this woman’s hardship, Shelby writes,
At one point, she was visited by a clergyman who said to her, “You need to come just as you are to the Lamb of God.” She listened but refused his advice until one day, coming to the epiphany that God wasn’t in a relationship with her because she was useful. She had a breakthrough moment that inspired her to write the world-renowned and beloved hymn, “Just As I Am.” the hymn became a staple for hymnals and was widely used as the altar call song for the Billy Graham crusades….
In the third stanza of the hymn, Charlotte wrote, “Just as I am, though tossed about / with many a conflict, many a doubt / fightings and fears within, without / Oh Lamb of God I come, I come.”
Isn’t that what Jesus tells us to do? “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).
Thankfully, Charlotte didn’t let her tangled mess of troubled feelings keep her from coming to Jesus. She discovered that “she could come to God just as she was because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for her….” God not only received Charlotte as his beloved child, but the Lord also used her transparency to impact millions of people across the world with the truth of the gospel.
Who knows how God might work in and through you, if you will but come to Christ just as you are and receive him for all that he is.