Have you ever experienced a pair of children bickering with a constant flow of "Did not!"; "Did too!".... That , my friends, has the power to drive you just a little bit crazy. And it reminds me of the internal struggle that we, especially I, have between the "flesh" and the "spirit" inside of me. Between my innate tendencies to serve and worship myself, and the voice of Truth inside me, convicting me to love the Lord your God above all else. Well, the two "children" inside my head are bickering with: "Do what you want!" ; "No, do what you OUGHT!" And back and forth it goes. Unfortunately, my response is (sometimes) to tell both parties to simply SHUT UP, and to distract myself with other things (anything to fill up the time and to prevent me from thinking about what is really going on inside my heart). I make sure to repeatedly remind myself of how ridiculously AWFUL I am, and then do whatever I can to escape from these thoughts and feelings (quicker than you can say IDOLATRY).
Well today was one of those days where the internal voices were yelling again (and driving me insane). And I had a choice to make. How would I respond? You better believe that I wanted to ignore them. And I tried. Pushing myself to do the things that I decided beforehand that I ought to do today... for some reason felt like TORTURE. I looked at the book on the dining room table called: Idols of the Heart: Learning to Long for God Alone by Elyse Fitzpatrick, and I knew that I NEEDED to sit down and read some of this book. Right now.
I only got a few pages into the introduction, but that was enough. It asked me to pause and reflect on Matthew 22:37&38: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." I was asked to consider whether or not I had other "gods" clamoring for my attention. The answer was an obvious yes! I served the gods of pleasure and ease. In every decision I thought to make, I was looking for how much I could "get out of it." If it wasn't pleasurable to me, I wasn't into it. Sometimes I could begrudgingly force myself to do whatever the task was, but I made sure to think through all the ways I could get the most self-satisfaction out of the experience. But believe me, I wasn't truly satisfied. Even my desires to do good were based on how much better I could "make myself," in order to feed my pride. Since I couldn't attain perfection in any or ALL areas (yep, I wanted all my problems fixed, ALL AT ONCE), I would choose once again to distract myself, instead of confessing my sins before the Lord.
I sat down and thought about all of the things that God has given me, and continues to give, that I clearly do not deserve. After I have made an idol of pleasure, why has God so graciously continued to bless me with, for example, food that TASTES good? The joy of family? The pleasure of reading His word? After I have spent my money the way I have wanted to, countless times, why hasn't God taken away my job or my ability to work or... punished me according to what I deserve? He hasn't. And it is all because of Christ. Even though my limited human understanding cannot fully comprehend it, what I actually deserve is eternal punishment. (I believe it, yes, but I can't grasp God's holiness as I ought... yet). Furthermore, my good works before Him would be, without Christ, as filthy rags. So what I need to do is humbly present each decision I make, each "ought" that I do, with gratitude that it counts to God for anything, and be thankful that God IS growing me to be more like Christ, albeit slower than I would like. Each time I sit down and ponder how to eat, how to spend my time and money... every minute detail... I can and should consider how what I am doing can glorify the Lord. This ALSO is a bit of a foreign concept to me. It feels silly to do, when we first start out, because we are so accustomed to thinking about OURSELVES all the time. But I know it is the only way to live.... to truly live. I have been set free from the bondage of sin... and by God's grace He will help me to educate both of those "voices" that are arguing in my head. No, life is not about pride and accomplishing as much as you can for your own glory (and pretending you're doing it for God!). And no, like is not about pleasure and enjoying as much as you can. We have been given life to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.... and THAT is the most pleasurable "accomplishment" that we can ever strive to attain!
No comments:
Post a Comment