Burdened | For The Wages of Sin is Death (Part II)
This post is a continuation from the post below.
I decided to get up and leave the training for a little bit (I had been typing the previous post during it. It is good but a bit slow going). I went for a walk down a road I hadn’t been down yet. I just started talking to God as I made my way deeper into the lush hills of Gitarama.
A thought came to mind, it is a quote from Rob Bell, in one of his sermons he said “Whatever you look for you will find.” Essentially there is enough of everything in this world that if you are seeking it out, you will find it. Hatred, injustice, brokenness and sin…they are everywhere. But equally abundant are joy, justice, hope and love.
As I walked back I was warmly greeted by one person after another. None spoke English, but their warmth of their greeting required no words. As I approached the FH office two kids, no more than 3 years old, ran up to me smiling. I have passed them every day on my walk to the office. Each time I pass they smile as they run forward, as they get a few feet away they throw their hands up into the air, indicating they want to be lifted. And so I pick them up, each weighing no more than 30 pounds or so, and lift them as high as my arms will reach. They then preceded to grab my hand and walk with me until I reach the side road that takes me down to the office. As this occurred again on my walk back today, it reminded me of the innocence and joy of a child. The child. So often God uses a child to teach a man. Is there a better example of unencumbered joy?
It is so easy to see the brokenness around me, to hear God’s call to be “Holy as I am Holy,” and to become frustrated with my/our failure to live this out. But I have to come back to the cross. I have to find my peace in knowing we won’t ever achieve perfection apart from Christ. I have to allow Christ to cover my own imperfections and I have to let go of my victories as well, lest they serve as a stumbling block and bar by which I measure my Christian walk and thus my success. My success lies in my obedience. I shift my focus to these words from the apostle Paul:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
I still feel a distance with God. I still am weighed down in the ways I previously wrote. But I am clinging to the hope of the cross, clinging to the knowledge that there is an ultimate victory. I will continue through this season, but I will try and change my perspective a bit, I will try and be more intentional with what I am looking for.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9)
Amen
The last two posts draw out of my brain:
1) “The deeper the darkness, the brighter the light.” A part (only a part!) of my love of ‘community’ in the Highlands youth group (remember when you were a youth?) came from the reality that ‘community’ is often missing more in the self-contained, middle-class suburbia than anywhere else. To quote another author, “God is found in the most God-forsaken places… right now, that seems to be the suburbs.”
2) Is it possible that what you are feeling as ‘distance with God’ is, perhaps, the realistic despair of sin? That, perhaps, you are actually closer to God and feeling this aspect of His heart? I am honestly asking, not cajoling you, if this might be what you’re feeling. It has been my experience that few get to the place where they might experience such despair, even fewer are willing to feel it once they arrive.
Thank you for these continued updates! It’s much more fun to pray for specifics
David I agree, I think that the suburbs of America are such a lonely place, yet in the current state, there is a cloud of denial masking any and all issues such as community. Interesting how the quest for comfort has destroyed components of life like community (if not destroyed severely damaged).
As for the second comment. It’s definitely possible. I’m trying to figure all of that out right now. Somehow all of these themes over the past few month (distance, weight of sin, relearning the cross, God’s grace) are connected. Part of the separation, or despair, has come back to me scrutinizing my own sins, and I think thus, the distance is magnified. But perhaps I am in that place of feeling His heart. I’ll have to keep wrestling with it. A friend e-mailed me the verse below. I have been thinking about it as well. Just the weight of what I feel and the idea of sorrow increasing with knowledge…
“For in much wisdom is much vexation,and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).
The verse about forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward towards the goal has been relevant to me this week too, although in a different way. Sorrow can hold us back, and we must proceed doing what God has told us to do and make Him known in this world.
I just love the image of those smiling boys running towards you and you lifting them up. They’re at least a good seven feet in the air! and how could you not be smiling back at them? Kids love you and you love kids. =)