A simple question was asked to me the other night. This simple question had a simple, yet complex answer. One of my students asked me, “Do you cry?” The simple answer was, “no,” but the reason to the “no” is very complex.
I do not think it is more “manly” to not cry, and I even think a good cry can be healthy. However, for me, I can count on one hand the number of times I can remember crying.
The only answer I could give him as to why I do not cry is that I have become numb to most things in life. Being my friend can be a very frustrating thing because I tend to keep people at an arm’s length. This is not healthy, but it is something that I began to do from a very young age.
My dad was in the air force, and that caused us to move quite a bit. I never wanted to become too close with anyone because I knew when I moved again it would be emotional and sad. My parents were always perplexed at how well I took the moves, but the reality was I did not become close with anyone in order to make the moves easier.
It is a very scary thing to open your heart up to someone. This makes you vulnerable to heart break. Let’s face it, sometimes you have very dark areas that you do not want people to know about, because you fear that if they knew about them they would run.
I guess to put it simply, letting someone know your heart is a great risk, and it is much easier to keep people at an arm’s length.
I fear that so many of us have kept God at an arm’s length. We sit in church services and attend Bible studies week in and week out, but we experience little transformation in our lives. It is almost as if we fear letting God truly take hold of our hearts.
God does not delight in the petty “sacrifices” we make for him. At least in the Old Testament they had to get their hands dirty. But in reality, our hearts are in the same place as those in the Old Testament. We feel that if we make some sacrifice of our time to attend church, or a sacrifice of our time to lead a Bible study, or if we sacrifice the “fun” of doing worldly things, that God is somehow delighting in our actions.
It is almost as if we give God this, this, and this, then we can justify keeping this, this, and this (fill in the blanks). We keep GOD at an arm’s length because we know if he takes hold of our hearts we will have to undergo some major surgery, bones will have to be broken, cuts will have to be made, cancers will have to be removed, and ultimately it is going to really hurt before it gets better. So we keep him at a distance and offer him crappy sacrifices while we go through the motions and deceive ourselves into thinking we are just fine.
Christianity has become vain repetition to us.
The imagery of a deer desperately panting for water, knowing that a quench of its thirst truly means life or death, and comparing that to the way we should thirst for God, seldom sets of an alarm in our heads. We do not thirst for God as we should, and it is because we have become numb to him.
When we run from God it will feel like freedom at first, but in the end, we will end up enslaved to something that is beyond our own will power to return from. God is most distant when he does nothing to discipline us in our sin, and this is a very, very, very dangerous place to be.
So here I am evaluating many aspects of my life and finding areas where I am attempting to keep God at an arm’s length. And here I am trembling as a pray an extremely scary prayer… “God capture my heart, lead me to repentance, and discipline me in the areas that I do not want to give up.”
I pray for all of us that God would not be distant, and that he would take action where actions needs to take place so we can escape enslavement and live in his freedom.
If you can pray this with ease, please do not pray it. Take the time to evaluate your heart and understand your condition before God. Know that the perfection God requires has been provided in Christ, and that nothing you can do can make you right before him. But also know that God does not take this lukewarm junk of keeping him at an arm’s length.
Give God your all, for her deserves so much more.
Rid Yourselves of Hypocrisy
7 years ago
2 comments:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” C.S. Lewis
i left the previous comment earlier today with no explanation and i just wanted to take a sec and clarify who i am and why i left that comment. first, i'm erika. we've meet once before, a while back, at a college/career sunday school party thing at the Burk's house. i've been visiting fbc for a little while now and it's a rule of mine to get to know and understand the heart of a church, but more specifically the heart and ministry philosophy of the leaders. while trying to find out more about the leaders of fbc, i came across your blog, and that brings us to this comment. which, after reading it back, sounds a bit rude; and i just wanted to clarify that that was not my intentions in sending it. honestly, i really was not directing the comment specifically towards you, but more towards the general tone and feeling of your post. the whole idea of how one can truly glorify, serve, honor and trust God if they do not know Him and love Him. And how can one know Him deeply and love Him intimately if they close their heart to Him? your post was profound and touched on some very deep issues that many people face in their lives. today i came across this quote and i was struck by the realistically scary truth behind it and i just wanted to share it with you. hope that's ok!?
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