Beware The Faint Hearted

JESUS NEVER WANTED my life so that he could clean it up.

He wanted my life, with my permission, so he could destroy it.

That may sound harsh, but it is true. 

And the irony of it all is had I not agreed to give him my life, I would have destroyed it without any help from him. 

I should have considered the cost, as the Bible says, before I so quickly agreed to give Jesus my life.

That is to say, if I thought my own life was worth keeping.

Which I did.

(After he cleaned it up and made me look so good among the church people.) 

But, as I am learning today, this temple of God, which Paul said is my body; made up of flesh, mind, emotions, soul and spirit, is not standing on a firm foundation which is able to stand when the storms of life hit. 

No, I am more like the edifice Hollywood uses on the set of their motion pictures that just look good on camera, but are able to collapse or move around with ease.

While I always thought the worst enemy to a Christian life was the devil and his conniving, I have learned that Satan needs hardly to glance at me.

For now I see that it is none other than I who is the greatest enemy to a life committed to following Jesus. 

No one else thinks for me nor determines the steps I take.

No one but me decides what is right or wrong and good and bad and no one, not even Satan, causes me to desire what I want. 

No, I have seen the enemy and she’s a powerful force within me.

I have spent more than sixty years with myself, and after becoming a church lady, I thought of myself like the Saturday Night Live character, Stuart Smalley, who declared: 

“I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” 

Maybe that’s why the Lord changed the circumstances in my life and brought the storms, which systematically and methodically destroyed so many pillars of my temple as I fought to keep them standing. 

Those pillars were of self-sufficiency, self-effort, and self-worthiness, which were built on a foundation of righteousness, knowledge, and enough pride to choke a horse.  

While walking on the beach alone—after five years of wrestling with the Lord and trying to save myself—I had a moment of clarity.

I realized I no longer wanted the things I had pleaded to have returned to me. 

Those things were the financial security and career I had enjoyed for so many years; the love of a man who shattered my heart; and the sense of importance to so many people in whose lives I thought I made a positive impact through my service to God. 

Something had changed in me as I watched the wildlife along the sand, in the sky, and in the water.

I was completely undone. 

Who I thought I was or needed to be was gone.

I was standing in nothingness. 

Glorious nothingness. 

I was an empty vessel where it felt like anything was possible. 

For a brief moment, which lasted until I returned home and back to the giants and dragons of my real life, I understood what Jesus meant when he said he wanted my life nearly three decades ago.

In order to give me the life he purposed me to have, my life had to die. 

And then she got in my way.

Again.

The bedrock of the temple’s foundation had not yet been shattered.   

Luke 14:27-33,Proverbs 16:9,Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

As always, it is my intent and hope that my words may encourage you wherever you are in your journey.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.--Jesus (Mark 4:23)

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