For many months now God has used the intensity of trial, suffering, and circumstance to teach me some of the most profound lessons of my life. Many of these lessons were ones I thought I already knew. Other lessons I had no idea I needed to learn. I had forgotten God's statement in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind" (or literally, the most secret parts.)

And, so He has done. He has searched my most secret parts, and found hidden things needful of light. He has orchestrated a complex sequence of lessons perfectly ordered and linked to create a wisdom far greater than the sum of its parts. It is an intrinsic* (a fundamental) knowledge that is difficult to relay and impossible to learn without the Holy Spirit. As Job 32:8 records: "There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the almighty gives him understanding."

God knew that there were things I only understood intellectually, academically, and by rote—doctrinally correct knowledge derived from reading, studying, sermons, and teachings. But, like the Israelites of old, I did not know these things. I needed God to fulfill His word, as written in Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10. He had already "put His laws into my mind," now I needed Him to "write them on my heart"—such a perfect illustration for the work God was, and is, performing in me. I have known these verses by heart, yet they were essentially meaningless to me until God carved them there, on my heart, just as He said He would.

Suppose you were to ask a man who has had his eyesight from birth to describe the color blue? He can't, at least not adequately, because the experience of color is an intrinsic awareness that defies words. But he knows. Now suppose this man was blind from birth. He has been taught that the sky is blue and He knows that the sky is blue. He will tell anyone who asks him that the sky is blue. Sadly, for him however, he will never have the concept of blue. I know that we are saved by grace and not by works. Ephesians 2:8-9, among other scriptures, is abundantly clear in this regard: "For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, least anyone should boast."

Yet, as the trials increased in scope and intensity, I looked for solutions in my own behavior. "Dear God," I cried out, "What am I doing wrong? What do you want me to do differently?"—not that searching yourself for sin and changing accordingly is a bad thing, quite the contrary. In Lamentations 3:40 we are admonished to "search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the LORD." The problem was that I was unwittingly making His mercy dependent on my actions. In spite of the trials and pressures, as far as I could see, I was still obeying God to the best of my ability, striving, as I know we must, to follow the example of Christ—failing woefully of course, but trying hard nonetheless. Yet, each day seemed to bring further disaster; new trials that separately could be managed, but collectively oppressed the spirit.

Several times a day I fell to my knees, asking Him to show me what I was doing wrong, what I was doing that was so bad, and, oh, He showed me. He showed me plenty, but not all at once, and not in a way that would allow me to see any cause and effect, because there appeared to be no direct correlation between my actions and the trials besieging me. That was a hard one for me to accept. Life taught me at an early age that it could spin crazily out of orbit at any given moment, that we are vulnerable to so much that is uncontrollable. Conversely, I inverted the lesson, I lived mine with a death grip on the reigns, constantly at attention least disaster strike, or creep in unawares.

I am a problem solver, convinced that always around the next corner is the solution I have yet to try—the one that will bring everything back under control, the action of my own that will make the difference. It seems that not to believe so is very terrifying. There are benefits to this approach. Your cup is always half full, your creativity is high, and you don't give up easily, if at all. But in this instance, and in this lesson, it was working to my detriment. To find myself so at the mercy of time and circumstance was causing me great psychological suffering. Again, I had read Ecclesiastes 9:11 many times. I knew that "the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability, but time and chance overtake them all" (emphasis mine). But, until God wrote it on my heart, it was an abstract concept—as abstract to me as grace, not works.

Tearful promises of change and anguished acknowledgment of revealed sins seemed to avail me nothing. There was no ease from the trials. Every door was shut; locked even. DO NOT ENTER. NO ADMITTANCE. There were no discernible changes in circumstance, but changes were taking place: spiritual changes which were about to culminate into a life-altering awareness. I was being forced to internalize a very basic principle. Falling forward on my face, I surrendered to God in a way I had yet to do, even after years of baptism. I acknowledged to Him that I knew I was His to do with just as He desired, that I was His to chasten with or without cause, to bless or to curse, to save or destroy, solely on the basis of His good pleasure. I acknowledged that He owed me nothing, and even my existence was His to deem.

Immediately, God finished that day's work with a final stroke of His heavenly pen. Now I knew. I intrinsically knew that nothing I had ever done or ever would do could earn me the right to a backward glance from the Great Creator God—not my most righteous works or my best intentions. I fully understood that it is by His mercy, by His incredible goodness, that I am sustained and will one day have eternal life. I am those "filthy rags" spoken of in Isaiah 64:6, and the good news is that according to James 2:13 "mercy triumphs over judgment."

God crosses his Ts and dots his Is. At least two years ago, or more, I had undertaken to read the book of Job. After reading it several times I explained to God that I just didn't "get it' and asked Him to grant me understanding. Then, I promptly forgot all about it, but God never forgets our smallest prayer. I do not by any means compare my righteousness to Job's, and certainly not his sufferings to mine, yet at that moment I "got it" in a major way, intrinsically. Since I cannot say it any better than Job himself, I will quote from his book in chapter 42 verse 5: "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Am I now relieved of the need or obligation to obey His commandments, strive for perfection, and walk as He would have me walk to the best of my ability? I say emphatically, "no." I obey Him as an outward sign of my love, obedience and commitment to Him, the Creator, because in doing so I live a richer, more rewarding life that honors and glorifies Him. But, with the intrinsic knowledge of mercy and grace, I have a new, deeper, communion with my God, and I can fail without despair, and I will fail again. His work in me is far from complete. Thankfully, I have the assurance of Philippians 1:6 "that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."

As surely as I am a work in progress, God is the master artisan. A skilled artisan will take his raw material and reshape it according to his design. He will use a variety of techniques to heat, stretch and mold it, applying pressure to the precise point in which it must either bond or break. God knows His raw material. A clever craftsman, He knows iron cannot be smelted as gold, nor will clay and cloth respond equally to equal treatment. What destroys one refines another. To some, my trials may have been only passing annoyances, mere bumps in the road. Someone else may have given up from the weight of them, surrendering the crown, forfeiting the race. But God was able to tailor them perfectly for me.

Has God relieved every trial plaguing me these many months? No, not all of them, although He has been merciful in some. But, He has given me a precious gift, handwritten on my heart. It is the intrinsic word of God.

*in trin sic Of or relating to the fundamental nature of a thing inherent (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary)

or

*in trin sic1 a: belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing (Merriam-Webster's Tenth Edition).