In or Out

The moment we begin to dwell upon ourselves, our mental state, our condition, our circumstances, our finances, the things we have or want to have, we have lost our way.  Dwell means to live in a place and as soon as we live at what and who we are, we are stalling the progression God has set before us.  The mirror is a metaphor of our spiritual predicament.  Do we stare into it or look away to Jesus?  Is our eye fixed upon our depression, our loneliness, our discouragement, our frantic search, our health or is it looking away to the Cross of Christ where all the life of God comes bolting forth?  Jesus' statement about clothing and food and not worrying about them in the Sermon on the Mount is mostly misunderstood.  Like the disciples in the boat, we think He was talking about stuff...bread stuff...clothing stuff...car stuff...house stuff...body stuff...relationship stuff.  If that was the point of His rebuke, then Jesus aimed pretty low.  The Cross of Christ was not a triumph for the protection and distribution of stuff.  It was the devastating death blow to all sin and life is the working out in us of the life of Christ within the humdrum of all we do and think.  The moment we fix our eyes on our internal condition, focus upon what is wrong with us or right with us or necessary for our pleasure or happiness, we are like the child who stares into the sun and then can't see a thing.  Only with our eye fixed on Jesus, either through the scripture, by prayer or in doing what God tells us at the moment He tells us to do a thing can we see clearly.  We see the love God has for us.  We see the power the Lord holds in His hand.  We sense His love and mercy and care for us.  We trust God and believe Him.  We live.  Gaze at myself and I shrivel like C.S. Lewis's bus riders in The Great Divorce.  Look to Jesus and keep my mind on Him and the world shrinks and God grows large and I become more and more fit for the Glory I am meant to possess as a Child of the Great King.  As soon as the prodigal son determined to make his way back to the presence of His Father, he lost the identity of me and found Himself to be Us.  The world is too small for us when God makes us His home.

Jesus said to her, "Mary."  She turned toward him…      John 20:16 NIV