I feel a spiritual battle waging in my heart. While most days are filled to the brim, I can find myself in the snare "be more." This sinister trap grips my leg and produces a limp. It speaks with jagged teeth: "Are you doing more? Are you effective? Are you using every moment purposefully?" I try to convince myself to pick up hobbies, read Jane Austen, and write my next magnum opus, yet I just grasp at straws.
I do very little relying on my own willpower. I am reminded of the Gospel in my futile attempts at normalcy. On the cross, Christ the Glorious puts to death all my false ideas and idols of God, including my desire to be more. When Christ breathed out His last, He offered Himself up to the Holy Spirit and revealed a God beyond our wildest dreams. The shape of the Gospel is not a warped thing. It is not in the shape of my snare. It is more like a Fibonacci spiral, seen in the cusp of a petal or the curve of a shell. It is the fabric of our being, the very essence of life. It takes shape of a seed, dying to bear fruit. It is Jesus, not me.
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“Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a God we can in some measure control." - A.W. Tozer Oh, how I love to whittle God into a creature of my own making. I hold the wood-carved idol of God in my hand and chip away at those parts of Him that seem ugly, unsavory, cruel with my pocket knife. . . His wrath, judgment, hatred of sin, His exclusivity all fall as wood shavings near my sandaled feet. However, when I look up from my design, He looks nothing like the God I truly care about. He looks small. Bloated. Unseemly. Unfeeling. An Asherah pole of my own making!
Yes, I reduce God to manageable terms. Even during this pandemic, I beat my chest and cry: “We know God is using this for His glory and good purpose!” but scarcely know what that glory and good purpose looks like now amidst such pain. However, once I take a step back to remember who God is and who I am, I see the load lift from my shoulders and His radiance take full place. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ wisdom: “[I believe in God] as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” While looking directly at the sun will burn out my retinas, I can learn about the quality, power, and existence of the sun by what it shows me. I then recognize how it sustains everything I see and enables me to see it in the first place. I don't want to look into the sun, but look at what the sun shows me. He is teaching me to trust, to walk in dependence, to fix my eyes on greater things ahead. He is pruning back the layers of my fearfulness and worry and shaping it into His power, love, and sound mind. I am grateful I cannot lasso the sun and its radiance but simply enjoy the warmth on my skin. |
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September 2020
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