Not Made to be Alone-Communion by Design

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be alone. 

It's scary and, well, lonely.
Fortunately, God says I don't have to be.
Remember that I will be with you always, until the end of time.--Matthew 28:20

In fact, He's been with us from the beginning of time, too. He was there, in Eden--
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.--Genesis 3:8

And not only in Eden, but at other times with other men:
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time, and God walked with Noah.--Genesis 6:10
And the Lord spoke to Abram.--Genesis 12:1
Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp and pitch it some distance away, calling it the 'tent of meeting'. Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. --Exodus 33:7

God wants to LIVE with men, to be intimately present to everyone. So, regardless of the continual sin of man, He literally moved in with us.
First, He settled into the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of the Israelites' desert tabernacle:
A cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.--Exodus 40-34

Then, later, He did the same in Solomon's temple:
When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offerings, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.--2Chronicles 7:1

And although between each encounter there was some kind of separation--the sin of Adam and Eve, the flood, times of idolatry and slavery, even outright destruction, God could not leave it alone. He could not leave US alone.
And He came again, this time into Herod's temple.
When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.--Luke 2:22

Jesus came. God returned to the temple, but not in cloud or flame like before. He came like a child. 

And He wasn't done yet.
He did more.
And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.--Ephesians 2:22

That's it. God's last stop. Us.
When Christ came as a man, He made a way men could be sanctified, a way we could join to Him.
Don't feel like a suitable habitation for the living God?
Think again.

God's original plan for His first tabernacle came in three parts--
First, a courtyard designated for sacrifice. A place of blood and moaning, a place of washing and preparation and repentance. A place of intense feeling. A place that looked and smelled and tasted and sounded constantly, full of suffering, supplication, and promised relief.
Second, a Holy Place designated for prayer. A place that housed sweet smells rather than visceral ones, new bread rather than raw meat and offal. A place that offered low, comforting light rather than the harsh, punishing, unrelenting sun.
Third, a Most Holy Place in which the God's Very Presence dwelt. A place of glory. A place of communion. A place of awe.

That was the first temple. But now that the temple has relocated from structures made of wood and animal skins, gold and silver, does it really look any different?
Not really.
First, God's current temple has a courtyard of flesh and blood. A place intense with feeling--easily hurt and constantly in need. A place that sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells. A place unrelentingly tainted. A place that pulses with constant blood.
Second, God's current temple has a Holy Place, a soul that stills the outer courtyard's cacophony and prepares itself. A place that quiets, still tasting and touching and seeing, but in contemplation and anticipation. A place where we taste the Living Bread, see the Light of the World, and where we pray.
Third, God's current temple also has a Most Holy Place, a spirit that communes with God.  A place of sweet fellowship and complete knowing. A place of both perfect rest and unremitting awe.

And that's it. 
Emmanuel--God with us.
Living in you and me. Three in one. God and man. Not perfected yet, but a perfect design.
We were not made to be alone. Ever.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.--Colossians 1:27

Stuck Between Awful and Awesome

Photo: cutestuff.co

I didn't know this would be the hard part.

It looked so straightforward at first.
I was a sinner. That was plain. The list of my ungodly behaviors was long and shameful. But God is good. He showed my sins to me one by one, as gently as was possible, and guided me out of the dark place where I lived with them. And I learned to leave them behind, step by painful step, and the horizon cleared. I learned how to live in God's light, for the most part within His commands. I changed. A lot.

And God said it was good.

So, here I am. A new person. Walking in a new light, a new life. I look around and relax into it, nodding my head in agreement with what God has done in me, saying "Yeah. Thanks, God. I'm liking this."
I go to church every week.
I'm kind to children and animals and even cranky neighbors.
I mind, for the most part, my words and thoughts.
I help the people God brings into my world.
I concentrate hard on being a good wife and mother.
I try to work to God's glory.
I've found a rhythm to this life. It's become familiar. What I used to be and do is slowing fading into a shadowy past and this version of me has become my new, redeemed normal. 

And that's the problem. It's normal.
My new life is normal and God isn't. God is awesome. He's thrilling, exciting, beyond imagination surprising.
But if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be stuck here. Rescued from the awful, but not reaching the awesome.

This is what nobody told me when I started on this way--
God doesn't want us to look like redeemed humans.
He wants us to look like Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory--2 Corinthians 3:18

Darn. That's hard.
Harder than following commandments. Harder than changing behaviors. Harder than stopping habits and thought patterns.
God doesn't just want me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Him.
And, just for the record, I am not at all like God.

And yet.....and yet. I've nowhere else to go. It's either go back to the old me--no longer a viable alternative at this point--or it's more of the same--which is bogging me down--or it's this next thing, this glory, this transformation into something that's not only not me--it's not even human.

Not even human. That's the reason it sounds and feels so strange. God wants me to become more than I've ever seen in me or anyone else. I can never be God. I can never share all of his power or might or perfection, but He does want me to become god-like. He wants me to share His glory.

He created me to be like Him.
And God made man in his own image--Genesis 1:27
He says I can be holy.
Be ye holy as I am holy--Leviticus 19:2
He says that, as His beloved child, I am one with Him.
You are gods--you are all sons of the Most High--Psalm 82:6
He says he can make me perfect.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father.--Matthew 5:48, Nehemiah 2:48

If I am ever to get unstuck, this is where I have to go.
Up. More.
He must become greater, I must become less.--John 3:30
I have to aim for what looks impossible.
I have to go to a place I can never, never reach on my own. 
And maybe that's the point.
The further I go, the more I need His help. Until, finally, we get so close that we are never apart. So close as to be almost indistinguishable.
Yes. I would like that.

"Joseph--the Baby's Coming"

pic: www.mamamimiskitchen.com

It's been more than forty years and I still remember them.
Those first pains, that squeeze, that urgency.
And I knew.
The baby was coming.
And it always started at night.

It was likely late in the day when Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem. 
They could find nowhere to sleep and they were desperate.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born...there was no room for them at the inn.--Luke 2:6&7
I would have been desperate, too, if I had come to the hospital, and they had turned us away saying there was no room, and sent us back out into those dark nights.

It was no different for them.
Before that night, and for thousands of years, people had walked in darkness. 
All of us. Waiting. 
We knew who and what we were. We knew what we needed. Where was He? When would the savior come?

"Now," Mary said. "Now."
There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress...the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of darkness, a light has dawned.--Isaiah 9:1,2

And there it was--the star.

Out of Orbit

I love my church family.  Don't you?

Every Sunday, the same dear faces, smiles of recognition, hearts that have prayed for whatever concerns cloud my heart, sweet familiar voices lifted all around in songs repeated so often they seem gentle friends themselves.  A refuge of common faith.
How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!--Psalm 133:1

We stay together; we pray together....
But we can also stray together.

The Ephesians discovered this when John warned them:
You have forsaken their first love.--Revelation 2:4

The believers in Ephesus started out fine, just like us.  They cared about one another.  They prayed.  They ate together.  They did good works together, but somehow, they ended up off course, out of orbit.

This didn't happen all at once.
It happened in a slow creep away from the light, step by small step.

The church--every church, your church and mine,--can walk into darkness together, feeling perfectly fine about it.  We are still in unity, we think.  Surely, we can't be too wrong.

But we can.

So how do we test our church?
We do it by remembering that our church is not our church.  It belongs to Christ.
God placed all this under His feet and appointed Him head over everything, for the church, His body.--Ephesians 1:22

We do it by growing closer to Him individually and so maintain our rudder corporately.
Whatever binds us together as a church must take second place to what binds us to Christ.
The most important commandment is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.--Matthew 22:37-38

Our love for one another can push us out of orbit.
We can travel safely together only when we look primarily not toward each other, but toward Christ.

Getting Burned

The sun rose red this morning.  It crested the horizon in stunning pageantry, shining with glorious promise, and by its gentle light, I welcomed a new day.

But I would not have found the sun so hospitable from a closer vantage point.

The temperature on the surface of the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  It doesn't glow; it explodes in blazes of fierce fire.  Anyone drawing near would burn up before they got within 3 million miles.

God created the heavens and the earth to display Himself.
Our God brings life and warmth, but at the same time burns white-hot and dangerous.

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him and around Him a tempest rages.--Psalm 50:3

We draw near to Him with warning, but cannot resist His call.
I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.--Genesis 17:1

The sun, now warm and nurturing, now a destroying furnace, stands inexorably above all things, every day reflecting its maker.

The closer we get to the sun, the more we are aware of its power.  Like God, it only seems friendly from a long way off.

I cannot know the sun's physical touch, but I can feel its influence.
To approach would mean death, but to witness and experience is glorious.

Who Really Rises

The sun does not rise.
Just saying.
That big yellow ball on the eastern horizon every morning is not the one moving.
We are.  The earth.  The blue marble.

Now, intellectually, we already know this.  The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth, but when I look out of the the window at 6AM, I think, "The sun is coming up."
But it isn't.  Instead, I am on the earth, and the part of the earth I occupy is turning to face the sun.  Every day, my patch of earth slowly rotates relative to our stationary sun, then turns during the night away from it.  Our dawn is simply my face turning into the light.

Now, when you think about it, this makes perfect sense.
God made the world to reflect Himself.
He is the sun...constant, glorious and full of light.  We are the earth...vacillating, moving now toward Him, now away. 

You remain the same, and Your years will never end.--Psalm 102:27
I, the Lord, do not change.--Malachi 3:6

God finds delight in us as we seek Him, as we turn from dark to light.
He does not move.
Luckily, that makes Him easy to find.

Arise!

What are we made of?  Blood and bone, of course, but isn't there more?  Carl Sagan thought men made of 'starstuff' and although he was a scientist of sorts, that is hardly a factual explanation.  Still, he wondered what men have always wondered...

What is man that You make so much of him, that You give him so much attention, that You examine him every morning and test him every moment?--Job 7:17-18

What, indeed? 

I know my flesh is fragile, that my life is short, and that I make many mistakes.  Yet, somehow, I know that I matter.  I just can't figure out why.

God, however, tells me not to fret too much about that.

Now we have a poor reflection in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.--1 Corinthians 13:12

He says that He only knows what I look like.  He only knows all of what I am and what I am to become.  And I am a reflection.  A reflection of Him.

He made me and filled me with Himself.  I don't live very long, but I am made of the same substance that is God.  His glory passes through me and washes over me from the inside out.  I am but a breath, but if I am His, I am all His breath--a long, careful exhale, beautiful in power.

Starstuff, indeed.  The star that rises up bright in an otherwise darkened sky, the star full of fire and light.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.--Isaiah 60:1

Light Reflected

A full moon changes the night.  Under its influence, darkness flies away and stars fade against its silver glow.  The glow captures imagination and spawns fables.  Mysterious and fleeting, a full moon makes even radiant sunlight seem common.

But the moon is, and will always be, the lesser light.  In fact, the moon is only a pale mirror, a thief of light from a greater source.

There will be no night here; they will need no candle, neither the light of the sun, for the Lord gives them light and they shall reign forever and ever.--Revelation 22:5

The Lord GIVES THEM LIGHT.  It comes from Him, not them.

I doesn't matter how wise I sound, how good I look, or how cleverly I achieve something.   I, too, am a thief of light. God's light.  This thievery has another name--pride.

Any time I think that something of worth begins with me or belongs to me, I steal credit for what came from God.  And worse, those stolen goods become a roadblock in my life with Him.

Jesus knew this and gave directions regarding what I should do with these stolen goods:
If you will be perfect, go and sell what you have and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.--Matthew 19:21

I only possess what God possessed first, then in grace passed on to me.  What I most value never belonged to me in the first place.  I cannot love God, I cannot worship Him, I certainly cannot reach the heights of relationship He wants for me unless I get this down to my bones. 

I must acknowledge God as the source of all.  Everything depends on this.

What is most precious to me?  My dignity? My talents? My family? My work?  I don't own it.  At best, I get to use them for awhile.  At worst, they own me. 

My light may look pretty cool on a dark night, but that light, that pride, give no warmth, promote no growth.  My light is not mine.  It all comes from God and until I acknowledge Him as Source, I will walk away dejected like the rich young man of Matthew 19--fists clenched and empty.