Unharried

The average modern Christian lives chaotically.  She goes from one activity to another, accomplishing countless chores and feeling the weight of ten thousand demands without a shred of the peace and contentment Jesus possessed as He went about His Father's business.  Jesus did not separate what He did from what His Father was doing through Him.  The reason is that He refused to disengage Himself from the Father relationally or psychologically.  It was not theological fluff when Christ said that He and the Father were one.  Our Lord worked at this oneness and developed it so that it was habitual.  His times on the mountain established the oneness but so did His turning inward to the Father as He ate, talked with the disciples and the Pharisees, sat on the well in a Samaritan village and strolled along the edge of the lake.  He kept His mind aligned with the Father wherever He was and refused to let the lusts of the world disrupt that connection.  There are two temptations of Satan that knock us off our block.  We want what isn't ours and we don't want what God bestows.  The struggle in our head is a violent one.  Do we believe that our Lord loves us absolutely and that His will for us is perfect and good?  When we question those two axioms of scripture we lose our bearing with God and strike out on our own.  At that point we begin to operate as the Israelites in the time of the Judges, "everyone did as he saw fit."  If you want the peace that "passes understanding", then you must doggedly remain aligned with the same God who provides that peace.  Stay attached to the Lord at every level and at all costs.  Habitually thank the Lord for what you have and what you encounter at the moment, whether it seems good or bad to you.  The gratitude of the saint is her greatest defense against depression, anxiety and conflict.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.     Colossians 3:15 NIV

Stress and Distress

Have you considered the possibility that your physical woes are the result of turning away from the path God set for you?  I know that with Job and what we learn there, we run the risk of being that poor man's miserable friends ourselves but despite that, we have to explore this possibility.  In Psalm 6, the prayer offered is a whimpering moan.  O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Clearly God does do that; it is not absent from His relationship with us.  He does let our flesh be beaten by fleshly agony to get our attention.  Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint:  O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.  The body is in distress.  It is flailing in pain and the Lord seems to be letting it happen.  But it is worse than that. My soul is in anguish.  How long, O Lord, how long?  We come here to the point where it is worse even that physical pain.  The soul is in torment.  Where is God?  Why has He left me like this?  What have I done?  Have I been abandoned?  Am I caught in a trap with not even heavenly help?  It is the worst of places because the Christian alone knows the agony of the silence of God.  Those without Christ live only within their simplified minds; they imagine they hear God and make it happen on their own if things get rough.  The atheists and those who just

ignore the Divine proddings never concern themselves with it.  They are contented with a lonely psyche that runs wily nilly about; unrestrained and disorganized.  But the Christian who has heard the voice of God, who has lived within the nubs of the Holy Spirit cannot rest in Divine silence.  She has to hear something.  The longer the pain, the more unfeeling the solitude, the greater the desperation...God must answer, must come to my help.  And here we find the Psalmist; at the third level of supplication.  Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Have you reached that point?  Have you come to the spot where your desperation turns not to the fairness of God but to His mercy?  Has it come to that where nothing but the kindness of God will get you through to the place He has set for you?  Are you ready to bend to the will of the Holy Spirit and let Him be all your benchmarks, all your orderings?  It is strange to think that perhaps you are in distress because you have comfortably walked down a side road and gotten befuddled by your circumstances.  It seemed so free and easy, so much happenstance before.  Now you know it is Christ who has struck you down; not for His anger but for His mercy to contain you once again.  Can you take the next step?  Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping.  When the Bible, uses the expression, "the Lord has heard", it always means that the matter is settled and His mercy has won the day.  Go back to where you got distracted by fleshly wanderings and look once again for Christ's mercy to guide you.  Our Southern friends can assert that this is true.  At the eye of the hurricane, calm is reawakened.  Stay within the eye; leave the hurricane for those who are infatuated with chaos.