For This Reason

Since there had been a seven month gap between my last two posts, I thought, "HEY, why not post AGAIN?" Can you tell it's almost two in the morning and I can't sleep? Isn't it such an exasperating feeling when your physical body is so exhausted, but your mind won't shut down? Maybe it's a defense mechanism because my subconscious knows that someone is wanted to break into my dreams to steal my secrets....or maybe I've seen Inception one two many times.

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God," Ephesians 3:14-19.

Sometimes when I'm sitting in a service or gathering within the church body, I get frustrated. That may seem a bit vague, but it really is a pretty general statement. Every once in a while this urge flickers inside of me that wants to destroy everything - every tradition, every song, every building set up for a Sunday morning. Don't get freaked out, now...I only said once in a while :)

Most of this frustration comes from finding myself participating religiously in these "churchy" things, for the sake of being "churchy"...for lack of a better word. I want to function in the church body because I have a desire to have a real connection with the Holy Spirit, and for the passionate love of Jesus. I want to pray Paul's prayer to the Ephesians (and other churches, technically) for myself and for other Christians that sometimes get trapped in doing the right things, for the sake of doing the right things. When Paul writes "for this reason," he's referring back to what he talked about in chapter two, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ," (verse 13).

Lord forgive me if I have ever taken the blood of Christ with a light heart! How can that not affect me, deeply, so deeply that I work and struggle to drop everything hindering me from his sweet presence? Last night I was praying, asking God (for the umpteenth time) why I'm here. It would be so easy, so comfortable to be back in Washington. And then I started to read the beginning of chapter two, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

.....He rescued me from death. And here I am, looking back at what my life once was. Longing for it. How can I, when I have laid out before me a hope and a future? How can I when Christ, being rich in mercy, called me out from a place of temptation into a place where I can trust in him fully, not knowing what tomorrow holds?

This kind of went in a separate direction than I had planned, just in trying to examine my own heart soberly (while half asleep). I pray for my church body, that they would seek Christ earnestly and wholeheartedly, that they would want to know him, but I still see so many dead branches in me that I need to let God prune and throw into the fire. I guess I'm human just like everyone else. I would have liked to think more highly of myself....but I guess not :)

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen," (3:20-21).