When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him...In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and great commandment.
- C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock
We load upon ourselves many things to help us feel less insecure. We connect with people who have the same taste in music, movies, etc. We feel safe knowing other people like the same things we like. Not that this a bad thing, but it becomes dangerous as we mistake them for who we really are.
All of us live a sort of dualistic life. We have the "me" that everyone sees and then the "me" that only God sees (with some overlap in between). We try so hard to clean ourselves up on the outside, when our souls remain tainted and undelt with.
It's very hard to like that fact that God will see, and sees now, who I REALLY am. I can never put on a show for Him. But I do long to enjoy being real before Him and to help others like it too.
mmm, what a good word. i think i hear lewis saying that to learn to really REST in God's presence is what it means to feel totally known by Him. not that He'll see me and strike me down, but that He sees me clean and pure because of Christ's blood that has washed me, so He has no problem just loving the life out of me. otherwise, it really COULDN'T be restful to be in the presence of God. it makes me want to pray for people who don't follow God to feel very restless in their lives so they'll begin to seek and find Him.
ReplyDeletethanks for posting, d-willy.
whitney, thanks for the comment. I think that's very true. And that's the real struggle. It's easy to be scared to feel totally naked before Him, because we often doubt how much He loves us becuase of Christ. But once we get to that place of understanding His approval of us, we really can rest as we forget about trying to get that approval from others.
ReplyDeletedave, that's such a good blog it makes me want to cuss. there might be something wrong with me. but to you- kudos my friend! way to bring the good news in a tangibly challenging fashion.
ReplyDeleteyeah, i'm with garrett. this is a really good one man.
ReplyDeletethanks fellas. garret - so I guess my job is to make you cuss more? :)
ReplyDelete