Go Home

You are 8 years old and are playing in the street with the other children.  It’s that eerie time of the day where the sky is changing colors as the day slowly gives way to night.  The dim yellow street lights flicker on one by one down the sidewalk.  Your friends’ mothers begin to call out their names and they each start to run home.  They don’t seem nearly as heartbroken over your interrupted game of manhunt as you do. You yell to their backs, “Come on guys, don’t go! We’re having so much fun!”  Finally you’re the last one out and it is completely dark now.  There’s a warm glow coming through the windows and you can see your friends inside their homes with their family smiling around the table.  You slowly walk toward a window pane and the sounds of the deep, wholehearted laughter reach your ears.  As you begin to press your face up against the glass you smell the aroma of chocolate chip cookies from the warm oven.  You can’t even understand how your friend is the same one who was just outside playing with you.  His expression says, “It was nice playing with you; I enjoyed it.  But now-I am home.” But you are alone, on the outside looking in.  You are merely observing intimacy.  You want to go home.

            This is exactly how I feel when I encounter someone who is madly in love with Jesus.  It’s clear they spend time in God’s presence (a home) where they are secure, filled with joy, at peace, completely satisfied and full of love.  Our time together (on the street) isn’t their source of joy; they have a home where their desires and longings are satisfied.  Our friendship is, well, simply extra.

            How often I feel like I’m on the street, merely observing the intimacy that others have with Jesus.  The issue is that I am on the street looking for satisfaction that can only be found at home.  I think that the friendships, activities, food vendors and entertainment out there are enough to satisfy my soul and make me complete-but they don’t.  I only need a glimpse of home, that beautiful, soul-satisfying, love relationship, to remember my own home…

            In God’s presence I am filled with joy; there are eternal pleasures (Psalm 16:11).  With Him I can lie down and sleep in peace because he makes me dwell in safety (Psalm 4:7-8).  Only in His presence is my soul calm and content, like a weaned child with its mother (Psalm 131:2).  I remember the times that my soul was satisfied in His presence, satisfied “as with the richest of food” (Psalm 63:1-5), and it makes me hungrier!  I want to go home.  But I forget! I fight the temptation daily to seek satisfaction elsewhere.  I’m not always convinced in my heart that time in God’s presence is better, more precious, more valuable, more fulfilling than anything else. I do not always love and cherish time with God.  But thank God I can be honest with Him and ask for His help.  A.W Tozer summarizes it well with his prayer:

“Oh God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still.  Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed.  Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.  Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.”

            May we each internalize this prayer and make it our own.  May we refuse to stay on the outside, observing the intimacy between our friends and God.  May we be madly in love with Jesus ourselves and spend sweet, sweet time in His presence.  May we Go Home.

Inception: Ultimate Reality

                I just watched the movie “Inception” for the second and it blew my mind…again! It is a great movie that revolves around the issue of reality verses fiction.  It caused each member of the audience to seriously consider “What is reality?”  The main character fought a constant battle to decipher between what was real and what was not.  However, this struggle was self-inflicting.  Let me explain: Rather than ‘take his thoughts captive’ and clearly define reality, he allowed himself to entertain illusions and dreams that he knew weren’t real.  He chose to let his mind dwell on what he wishes was real.  Because he spends so much time there, these thoughts are naturally on the forefront of his mind; they are invading his subconscious!  What we think about the most will begin in the thoughts as a matter of will, but they’ll ultimately take up residency in the subconscious of our minds.  These will become our reality.  So what are we thinking about?  If we want to live confused about ultimate reality, all we have to do is crowd our minds with the foolishness of this world, that claims to be all that there is:
            Foolish Fiction #1:  There is a teaching that “what you see is what you get…Period.”  This naturalist approach to life is opposed to Real Life: The kingdom of God.  The laws of nature are real, but only because they find their being in the higher reality of God’s existence.  But it is so easy to forget this and blur the lines of reality. 
            Foolish Fiction #2:   To some, reality is having a dream and pursuing it with no restrain.  This is the “You can have whatever you like” mentality.  Their reality is defined by an intense, life-long pursuit of dreams, ambitions, accomplishments and success.  If they just work hard enough, if they just reach the next step, they could make their dreams come true and really be satisfied.  If only they could have enough…Only Jesus can quench the thirsty longing of each man’s soul (John 4:14).
            Foolish Fiction #3:  A third and final dream that tempts us to ignore reality is the “Fairy Tale.”  We so easily write out the script of our lives to be a fairy tale, starring: Me, Mr./Mrs. Perfect, 3-5 beautiful children, Spot (The Dog), nice suburban home, with a secure and steady job.  There is nothing wrong with this picture, if it is what God has in store for you.  But what about the countless people, self included, that are living for this! This dream can dominate our thoughts so much that we are convinced of it as the reality that affects our every step.  May we seek first God and his kingdom and His righteousness.  May we count it all as lost and consider all these things rubbish in order to gain Christ, know Christ and be found in Him. 
            But to keep a tight grip on life and reality, we must start with the mind.  What we allow our minds to dwell on the most will become our reality.  In 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Paul declares, “We had boldness in our God…” Paul was convinced of the reality of God and His gospel message.  Are we?  Are we meditating and contemplating the truths of the Bible so much that they are our reality.  Are we convinced of the truths of Scripture to the point that we allow them to have influence on they way we actually live our lives? Or do we speak about them and know them as intellectual theorems, while keeping them disconnected from the reality we truly live in?  What are we convinced of?  What can we boldly declare as fact, as reality?  Jesus Christ, the son of God, has come to take away the sins of all who believe in Him and reconcile them to God.  Not because of own striving to earn it, but simply because of His own grace and beautiful mercy-FACT.