Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The Necessity of Reorienting Myself...Daily



I'm stuck.  I'm stuck in this world.  And I am subjected to constantly thinking in this mind I have that has so much of "this very world" all over it.  I cannot escape it.  I am stuck here.  I have known no other worlds.  I was born into this world.  I will one day die in this world.  And everything in between will be done in this world.  


And in this world they tell me I am important.  They tell me I should seek my own pleasures in all that I so desire and crave, even as I want it.  They tell me there is no right, nor any wrong, but that I determine those as I see fit.  They tell me THIS is all there is.  They tell me I have nobody I have to give account to.  They tell me to just be me and do it, at least when "it feels good."  

And it is not only "they" who tell me this, but I TELL ME THIS.  Much like the intrinsic capabilities of the newly born creature that knows how to find its source of food, so too, nobody had to tell me any of the above-mentioned, I knew all these things.  Or maybe better said, I didn't have to be told any bit of this, even if my understanding of them wasn't perfected.  My very heart, the inner-most, deepest, truest part of me had all these same matters internally throbbing within me from the very day I can even remember, which I now might argue was put in place even at conception.  And it is innate to every mere mortal who has ever been to have this reality living in them. 

And so you and I go about our day thinking that the pursuit of things is in our best interest.  After all, we are told, bigger is better.  And more is better.  And if only you possess the various things our society dangles in front of us THEN life will just be better for you.  The appeal is felt.  "Oh yeah, I do need that," we say internally.  And every commercial that passes our eyes on T.V., every refrain from the latest top 40 song, every day in which there is pain and discomfort of any sort, and any time we see someone with something that we don't have, we find ourselves internally and externally moved to change our reality, or at least express our great distaste for our reality.  And we do this because THIS WORLD tells us so.  But we have been deceived. And yet there appears no possible escape from it.  We are stuck...in a world where this is all we know...in THIS WORLD...and there is no other world.  Or so we are told.

Daily I find another calling to me.  Daily I find the echoes of His voice still reverberating throughout all of nature.  The stars above me shout it, even from their great distances.  And the trees moved by the wind add their own familiar refrain, joining in with the stars above in declarative praise.  And everything seen and unseen in the world does so, but we do not hear it as we should.  

Knowing our inabilities and shortcomings He left us with a clearly articulated masterpiece.  And this masterpiece was given to orient us to a reality that nothing intrinsic to us, or external and common around us proclaims rightly.  See the reality is we needed to be awakened to a greater reality.  And God in His Word was exceptionally gracious to orient us to the news that the pursuit of all that our mind and heart desired would provide no lasting fulfillment.  He tells us in His Word that there is another world, a world to come wherein the infiniteness of existence will swallow up the joys and pains we experience here and cause pain now to seem tolerable, and joys here to seem as a yawn.  

And His Word beckons me daily to reorient myself to this reality that I am not to pursue my joys in finding more for myself, but in giving more of myself.  He reorients me daily in the GOSPEL of His Word to know that Christ is the all-satisfying, infinite, Treasure both now and forevermore.  He reorients me to think about every moment of every day as an investment in the lives of others who are stuck...in a world...in a system, where they think there is no greater purpose.  And here they think life is lived in the here and now.  He reorients me daily, so much as I listen to His Word and the glories of the Gospel found therein.  

There is a grave danger for all of us who consider ourselves Christ-followers.  If we do not daily get into His Word we will continue to be sucked back into a pattern of thinking and acting and living that can best be described as merely that "of this world."  But when I expose my heart to the power of His Word, I will be reoriented to know that this world is not as it seems.  And I will learn to live in this world as He designed for me to live.  And I will live on purpose knowing the transitory nature of all that this world, and instead live in light of that true world to come. 

Oh how you and I need this reorientation that this world is not our home.  We need this reorientation as to how we are to live here.  We need this reorientation as to just how sinful and evil we really are.  We need a reorientation to the end that is coming upon this world.  And we need a reorientation, daily to the excellencies that are found only in Christ, lest we otherwise get caught up in the lie, the terrible deception inside of and outside of us.  And this reorientation will cause us to get swept away to where the "suffering" we endure is manageable in light of the life to come.  And the pursuit of earthly things is as vanity knowing the end.  Let the words of Paul convince you of this need to be reoriented.  

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. - Philippians 3:20-21

No comments:

Post a Comment