Danger to Myself

March 3, 2019

Yesterday’s Scripture is still rolling around in my head. “The people continued to stand a long way off, and only Moses went near the dark cloud where God was.” —Exodus 20:21 GNB

They saw the fire on the mountain, felt the earth quaking beneath their feet, and were afraid. Afraid of what this God would do to them. But they weren’t afraid of what they might do to themselves. That is the greater danger. God could squash us like bugs, but instead loves us so much that he sent his Son to die upon a cross for us and in our place. Instead of annihilating us, he saves us at great cost to himself. Somehow, we tend to miss this, and imagine instead that his intents are destructive. We don’t want to lose the baubles we hold so dear, so we shove God to the side so (we think) he can’t reach us. 

Life’s danger is not what God will do to us. He has already demonstrated not what he will do to us, but what he has done for us. The real danger is what we do to ourselves when we keep God at arm’s length. We were made in his image, but in rejecting him, that image gets distorted and twisted into a sad and ugly caricature of it’s original beauty. Like a skilled plastic surgeon, God wants to restore that image in us, but we hold him at bay twisting that image even more grotesquely. Instead of finding healing and joy, we cling to our brokenness and pain.

Strangely, drawing near to God is no easy task. We would like to imagine that we are responsive to his invitation to come close, but that perversion which resides in us all resists. Just this morning as I was driving to Dunkirk to lead worship, I was trying to pray for the people and the service. I couldn’t focus for more than perhaps fifteen seconds at a time before some stray thought would pop into my head, leading my mind down a rabbit trail. Like the GPS on my phone, I was repeatedly compelled to recalibrate and get my mind back on track. There is something inside me that resists the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul said it well when he declared that he found another law in his members fighting against the law of the Spirit—a war going on inside him as he tried to do what is right. 

This is why we need grace. We wouldn’t even be able to turn to God if he weren’t working in us, drawing us to himself. When our minds and hearts wander, it is the Holy Spirit who pulls us back. Tonight I am thankful for this grace that corrals this wandering mind, bringing it over and over back into the presence of Christ, my Savior. Left to myself, I would be a mess. Or maybe I should say, “more of a mess.”