Going from a place of total focus on God and on my own heart condition back to a world focused on the bottom line, the number and success by the time you're thirty has been hard to say the least. Everything has felt the hit - my relationships with friends, my boyfriend, and my relationship with God being the more significant things that have suffered. But looking back on the last few months has made me realize that it is so easy to be lulled to sleep by the busyness of a culture that places humanity and our achievements above the condition of our hearts - that put the intelligence of the mind over the health of spirit and the drive of will over the ability to find time and rest. Or it goes the opposite way in the worst way. Teaching us that Yoga and meditation on our own "god within" will provide us what we need as spiritual beings - that by meditation and the build up of karma we can become supernatural in our own right. The kind of spirituality that says all paths lead up to the top of the same mountain. It is very easy to get lulled to sleep when the culture around you constantly feeds you these lies, as if it was an IV into the veins, and I have fallen.
So what was it that woke me up to this comfortable and selfish sleepiness? Drinking from a waterfall. Since I left the Christian school I was at worship at church had been empty, appreciative at best. The amazingness of the character of God had been lost on me for a month or so. He woke me up with worship - something I had taken for granted as a simple and ordinary thing-that-happens-at-church. And I started to drown in the waterfall, seeing that I was not open to the inpouring of God, but was instead struggling, closed in on myself. He started to take back the heart that has been his for so long it is hard to see it had strayed. The glory of God will never run out and so neither should our wonder at him. Unfortunately it often does because of the pollution the enemy has spewed all over the face of our world. So I had been woken up to the fact that I was asleep - now what? Now it is time to see how thirsty I had become, church had become a social event, service a thing to be done, and the bible a book to check off the list every morning. I was dying, not living but dying. Then life didn't satisfy anymore. The things I had been working for turned to ashes in my mouth, creativity became a waste of time - relationships became work and work became a drudge. Nothing compared to drowning in the waterfall.
So how does one go back there? How does one stay there? How does worship become a daily a breath by breath existence?
I don't know.
What I do know is that God is everywhere - not in the new age sense that everywhere is god, but God is everywhere this is his world and he fills it with his presence the animals get this and so does the rare human being. The trick is looking for him. The trick is to be intentional about being spiritual - in the way that we are intended to be spiritual, to be filled with Holy Spirit and to live out of that spirital water flowing into us from heaven. To look for him, to ask him, to knock at the door of his office and peek in and say "I'm sorry I haven't been here in a while, can we talk?" It's falling in love again. It's something I struggle with, but I see now is the most important thing. To carve time out for God AND to take him with me wherever I go. It's the need to be intentional. It's the spiritual discipline that comes from the conviction of humility - no I can't do this alone. It is the journey of a lifetime - the challenge to LIVE.
And I decided to wake up, brush the dust of a dying world off my robes of righteousness and start walking with Jesus again. He always waits for us.
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