Allowing God
I was spending some time in prayer recently, well, not really prayer, I was just quietly enjoying God's presence. It's been such a long time since I have just sat, knowing He is close but not having to fill the space with pointless words. So much has happened lately, so much of my self exposed to air after being buried for a lot of years, I wanted to know what God wanted from me. God started to show me something of myself, like an image of my soul, that essential part that is me. It was a shadowy image, broken and desolate. Matted hair, dirty face, shredded, blood-stained clothing that were once white. Open, seeping wounds, a picture more suited to the streets of Calcutta than western, middle-class suburbia. That picture is exactly how I feel inside, ugly and diseased, not fit to be seen by anyone.
As I watched, I saw God slowly try to strip away the rags, and to my surprise, I reacted pretty strongly! I could feel the word NO come raging up from my gut. "This is ME", I screamed, "These rags, these wounds make me who I am!" As soon as I said it I could feel the response coming back, "This isn't you, I made you and this isn't what I made you to be but you INSIST on holding all the hurt and pain inside like battle scars to be proud of." In that moment, I let it go. Everything in my life that has ever happened, all the shame, all the anger at being wronged, all the hurt at being abandoned, I let it go to God, let Him worry about it.
Why do we insist on dealing with everything ourselves and wearing our tattered rags when God could so easily take us and clean us up? Do we like being diseased and ugly? Are we afraid of what we'll see in the mirror if we allowed God to transform us into the radiant, holy beings He envisaged us to be? Maybe thats it, we are so used to the picture in the mirror, so used to what we see when we look into our souls, that we are too afraid of the change God could bring if we let Him. We can't stand being out of control of our lives. I prefer to let my wild God paint the picture He wants to see when He looks at me.
As I watched, I saw God slowly try to strip away the rags, and to my surprise, I reacted pretty strongly! I could feel the word NO come raging up from my gut. "This is ME", I screamed, "These rags, these wounds make me who I am!" As soon as I said it I could feel the response coming back, "This isn't you, I made you and this isn't what I made you to be but you INSIST on holding all the hurt and pain inside like battle scars to be proud of." In that moment, I let it go. Everything in my life that has ever happened, all the shame, all the anger at being wronged, all the hurt at being abandoned, I let it go to God, let Him worry about it.
Why do we insist on dealing with everything ourselves and wearing our tattered rags when God could so easily take us and clean us up? Do we like being diseased and ugly? Are we afraid of what we'll see in the mirror if we allowed God to transform us into the radiant, holy beings He envisaged us to be? Maybe thats it, we are so used to the picture in the mirror, so used to what we see when we look into our souls, that we are too afraid of the change God could bring if we let Him. We can't stand being out of control of our lives. I prefer to let my wild God paint the picture He wants to see when He looks at me.
posted by Snooty Farkleboob at 1:42 AM
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