Monday, August 17, 2015

Looking Inside

I look inside myself and I find this new need to be constantly distracted- with something. It could be video games or a tv show or funny images on the Internet, but whatever it is, it's a tool to silence the way I really feel and what I'm thinking.

And it's not a way to live. It's a way to die. It's a way to wither and shrivel- to acknowledge that there is a problem but take no time to mend it. It's like using air freshener to drown out the smell of smoke filling your house. Sure, it's possible that you'll remove the smell that reminds you of the fire, but the fire will continue to burn your house down and everything will be lost.

But our hope is this- that we have a God that is big enough and strong enough and loud enough to get our attention and wake us up, and He can give us his Spirit so that we have the strength to fight the fires of our hearts and our relationships and our world.

Really though, this is shallow. This idea that God needs us to cooperate in order to save us.

He doesn't.

He is strong enough and loving enough to save us from our fires without us even asking- though I think that sometimes He wants us to ask. He wants what is best for us and what's best for us is Him, but we get so self-focused that when God saves us, we credit ourselves. And the worst part of that isn't even that we are proud and arrogant and ignorant, or even that we're lying to ourselves. The worst part is that when we relocate and the new house catches on fire, we won't ask for help and we won't trust Him and we will miss out on how amazing He really is. The worst part is that we pass an opportunity to be intimate with the God of everything.

And it's such a sadness that God shows His kindness and we are so blind as to think that we are good and we are capable in and of ourselves.

I assure you that the other bad part of self-focus is grief. When we focus on ourselves too much and too long, we realize how incapable and small we are, and that's a helpless and hopeless thought- to think that you can't fix others and you can't even fix you. To look inside and know that you can't save yourself.

But God is and was, and is coming to the proud and the broken and those in burning houses, and He is rescuing. If your heart can't believe that and your soul still aches and you question all that I write...well, I still won't worry about you. God is not in need of your request, your belief, nor your approval in order to show loving kindness to you and bless you and saturate you in the goodness that chases you.

And so I will love you and He will save you, and one day...well, one day there will be no more fires and no depression and no distractions. One day we will simply live and love and grow warm in His house, and He will prevent fires and make our food and reign as we worship.

And that is a comforting thought.