Sunday, March 24, 2013

Who is this you are making me?

It is a quiet rainy Sunday morning - Palm Sunday. This is the week before the world could finally be reconciled to it's Creator through the perfect sacrifice of Christ. It is a time of great reflection.

Reflection has been the theme of the past nine months of my life. In late July of last year everything that I thought was secure began to fall apart. Looking back, the crumbling began years before. But I couldn't see it. I was blind. I lived in fear. The most deceptive kind of fear. The fear that if I didn't do life on my own, my way, and in my timing that I would be a complete failure.

I was a hamster on a wheel. Spinning spinning spinning, going no where, and wearing myself out in the process. The irony is that all of this self-fueled effort was the real failure.

The wheel came to a screeching halt last summer. God did not intend for me to live the life of a hamster on a wheel, in a cage. He intended me to live a life of beautiful freedom in Him.

I had ignored His still small voice for too long. So He did what any good parent does. He loved me enough to let me fall. He knew that I would not listen until every false source of security was ripped away.

He literally threw me off the wheel, out of the cage I had built, and into the big scary world. The false sense of security I had developed over the course of many years quickly revealed itself as well.... false.

Much of my reflection in the months since has been a sorting out of what is false and what is true. The Truth versus the lies. I want to share more of that in the days and weeks to come and I think I might be ready to do just that. I've started to do that a few times on this blog, but I've never shared the full story.

That's a little scary. But not nearly as scary as living like a hamster in a cage.

Now that we've established that I'm not a hamster - yeah. Who is this He is making me to be? That's a question that Beth Moore asked during her Simulcast on September 15, 2012. There were 7 points within that talk. The one that has me in reflection today is number 6:

"Faith rests its case on the resurrection of the dead." 

Yes it does.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of throne of God." 
Hebrews 12:2

That verse has run through my mind more often that I could dare to count during these months. Through His resurrection I too am resurrected. I have real life because of Him. No more hamster on a wheel. It's a life of daring adventure and excitement around every corner. It's freedom.

Life is actually not complicated when we truly "fix our eyes." It gets complicated when we focus on anything else. Not only does it get complicated, it gets constricted because our own worries and fears create boundless limits to what we think can happen.

Beth Moore's follow-up to point 6:

"All bets are off... He can do anything."

And oh my word... the anything has left me breathless lately. What took years to nearly destroy, God has redeemed and restored in nine short months. I want to share more of that with you and I pray for the courage to do so.


I hope you too have had time to be quiet and reflect on this Sunday.