There's a part of us that never gets healed.
It's just not possible outside of heaven. We were meant to be completely One with the One who made us and--we live on earth. We still live where sin is possible and babies can die and pain is real. We live unsettled--this acute awareness deep inside us that 'this' this crazy filth or ache or longing or however it expresses itself in and through you--this was not what I was meant to be. This was not the plan, this isn't it, this isn't where I wanted to be...
But you're there...and you have to live there...
And this is Christians, I am talking about, those who 'supposedly' have the Lord living inside them. (Imagine trying to face this stuff without His Presence to run to!)
We're all flawed.
There's a part of us that can face it, up to a point. We have just enough resilience and drive to carry us through. I call it your "point of breakage" mine (I thought) was fairly high. And then I realized that I...just...have...not...suffered...
So when true pain hit--and hit me hard--I was left scrambling. It's almost like you're in a room with no doors and the pain is these lasers being shot at you. You do everything you can to dodge them but sometimes
there are just too many
and you find
pain envelops
and you fall...
The point of breakage: the place where you hit the end of yourself and you hit it hard.
I say all this to describe our commonality, how we try to make it all okay and how we fail. We live like the cereal box answers are around the corner (what the...is a cereal box answer, anyway? what the ...does that mean?)
"If I only put in enough hours, then....blah blah blah will happen to me."
"If I
okay, I'm done coming up with examples. My main point is, we come up with these formulas for ourselves that are designed to give us what we need. I do 'x', they'll do 'z' and we'll all be fine.
NOT!
Sorry, the world doesn't work that way.
I propose falling apart.
I propose giving up.
I propose letting go of all the ways you've constructed your life so that He can (finally!) have His way with you.
The ache isn't there because you didn't try hard enough or read your Bible or didn't put in all that's necessary to be successful: it comes because you traded what was good for actually knowing Him.
Paul (rather explicitly) states that for him, knowing Christ is worth losing everything else. In fact (as one high school leader put it so sweetly for a crowd of teenagers) he calls all that other stuff worthless shit.
Yup, you read that right. Donkey dung.
If this ultra smart guy (who was willing to go through torture to be known as Christ's by the way) said this, he's probably right.
You're probably giving Him (knowing the Lord, deeply, intimately, more than just ten minutes in your Bible--seriously, you've got to give Him more than that) up to pursue those other things at the detriment to your soul.
There is no...thing, person, ideal, country, food, TV show...(you can make your own list) that will offer you a percentage of the life, hope and vitality just hanging out with Jesus does.
I've been called to a season of rest--and at first, I filled it full of 'good' things. I had a really hard time not being able to tell people what I was 'doing' through the week.
Now, as He invites me again to leave it all to just be with Him, I find myself realizing just how essential this is. I think of it as wasted or even silly sounding as I think about what other people must think (a terrible habit, that, one I'm trying to break)...but...
He wants me alive: I can only find true life in Him.
He wants me hopeful: I can only know hope through knowing His heart--and that takes deep intimacy.
He wants me bringing Him into the world: only possible if I know Him.
He wants me trusting: and you cannot trust someone you do not know.
He wants me healed: so He gives me Himself.
mmmmm....He's worth all the time is takes.
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