A Funny Thing
Jarod,
A funny thing happened as I was going for a run several days ago. It was a Saturday morning, the air was fresh, and the sun was shining. In a wooded park I saw children and their martial arts instructor practicing their discipline. Continuing to run through the woods I came to a tree whose branch was more than willing to allow me to use him for pull-ups. This was one of those rare days when, the more energy one expends, the more energy is released into the body. After I finished my pull-ups, I saw the sun shining brightly on a section of the ground. Breathing in the cool air, feeling at peace, being out of the noisy city, I knew this was it. At the back of my head I felt something snap ever so slightly and what felt like liquid sublimity flowed through my body. I didn’t expect it, but it happened. God was ready to allow me into His presence. I spent some time in meditation and prayer, basking in the sunlight and in the Father’s presence.
At times I’ve tried to recreate those experiences. I go through the same motions, even visit the same locations in hopes of feeling that way again. It hardly ever works. Those times usually happen: 1. when I have been contemplating the truth of God, and 2. when I am in need of reinstatement. It is a gift from God that comes and goes like some sort of magical portal into the spiritual world. I guess that’s what I find so interesting about God. He has total control. If He wants to leave, He can. He’s not obligated to us in any way. On the contrary, we’ve offended Him quite often, I suppose. That’s the word I keep hearing at any rate. He can’t invite us in all the time, that’s not our role. Besides, if He did we would get soft and fail to learn the other aspects of God. The very thing that pleases God is the thing we need to learn over and over again...obedience. This is the first necessity you must grasp if you hope to win God over. Actually, its more like allowing Him to win you over.
The first six books of the Scriptures seem to talk of nothing but obedience and cleanliness, obedience, cleanliness, obedience, cleanliness. This is apparently all that God wants, He wants us to be obedient and clean. I suppose the reason is because when we are obeying and clean, that’s when He can come visit us. And He really does want to visit us. He was hard on the Israelites, weighing them down with all sorts of rules to obey. Then Jesus came and all of a sudden humans didn’t have to follow those rules anymore (many of them anyways). Some say He made it harder by internalizing everything and locating sin in the heart. Clearly it was impossible for humans to please God with successful obedience, we were too crooked. That problem was solved on the cross.
Then there’s the brokenness. You consider yourself of lower regard, lower than the others at least. Your will is broken and so are your motives. In fact, it will probably be painful. I don’t think that God necessarily enjoys us being broken, but it does prove to be a necessary function time and again. Its too bad that I can’t break myself. That’s also up to God.
So we are, as we always have been, at the mercy of God’s grace. That’s why its worth it to be ready for that singular moment when God, in faithfulness to His promise, breaks us and cleanses us and then elevates us to the level of friendship for a time. This friendship can only last while we are in His favor because the backbone of it is our obedience and humility. The funny thing is, last week I was saying all of these things begrudgingly of God and His power, annoyed at His unwillingness to break into my life and do all the things I just described. But now, after having that experience in the woods, I feel refreshed and loved by God, which I suppose misses the whole point of what He wants, which is a constant satisfaction with who He is regardless of how I feel. Ahh human emotions. So fickle, so amusing, so dangerous.
May God shower His mercy on us,
Dave
