the Requiest

These are simply some thoughts that have come to mind over the past 12 hours thru conversations I’ve had with brothers who share the same particular burden of sin that I do.

Friend: I feel like I’m waiting for the ship to come and it never does. I want the ship to come and take me away from this sin. I pray to God to take this one sin from my life. To let me be free and never think or dwell on it again. Why won’t He do that? You and I have both heard of others who are instantaneously, miraculously released from a particular sin, why can’t I be healed of this one?

Me: I can give you the pat answers. God is teaching us something. There is something that He wants us to still learn. Maybe there is something that we aren’t doing in our lives. Of course I can type up a laundry list of all the things that I know I should be doing. Maybe it’s some cumulative act of doing these things that you’re / I’m missing out on.

Friend: I feel like I’m out in the middle of the ocean and if that ship doesn’t come along soon I’m just going to drown. I’m going to die out here.

Me: What if you’re already on the ship and you just refuse to recognize that? We’re already saved – I believe we’re both saved. If that’s the case then we’re already on the ship heading to our destination.

Friend: I know what you’re saying but I don’t feel like I’m on the ship.

Me: That’s because we’re down in the engine room.

Friend: I’m in a stinky, dark hold and I want to get up on deck and breath clean air!

Me: (Thought bubble) I want to be invited to the formal dining room.  (Hmm, thinking about food again….)

Me: You know I used to smoke all the time, I mean I still like a cigar now and then, but I used to smoke a pack a day. You know the thing that made me really quit wasn’t for health concerns. At the end of the day I want to be able to go home and kiss my wife and not have to try and hide the fact that I smoked earlier.

I want to be able to do that with my Savior too. I don’t want to have to try and hide the sin from earlier in my day. I can’t hide it from Him anymore than I can hide the smoking from my wife.

Friend: Yeah, I want to be able to kiss my Bride.

Me: So, what’s more important to us, being able to kiss our Bride our living in our sin?

From what a friend said last night. We’ve got the foundation already laid, now we have to build the rest of the house. I want to start laying down the logs and that’s done one at a time. I just want to know this year that none of the logs are going to be taken back down. I also want to know that the construction project isn’t going to get put on hold. I’d like to at least get it under roof before Winter. I’d be really happy with that.

Just some thoughts to ponder.

Peace,
Rong

Joel 2:12-13

¹² “Even now,” declares the LORD,
       “return to me with all your heart,
       with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

¹³ Rend your heart
       and not your garments.
       Return to the LORD your God,
       for he is gracious and compassionate,
       slow to anger and abounding in love,
       and he relents from sending calamity.

I fast and yet there is no weeping, there is no mourning, there is no emotional context on which to rest my faith. And oh yes I do desire to rend my heart before the Lord’s mercy. I desire to fall at his feet knowing the wretch that I am. I desire to know that all I can ask for in this world is His mercy.

Do not allow me to travel any further from your presence. Do not hold forth your hand and keep me at bay. I wander in circles like a dog not knowing where to lay down. I deign to command my own ship but have no compass.

Scold me, reprimand me, chide me as a parent to a wayward child, but in the end my Lord hold me, comfort me.

Is my leaning out over the chasm of the unknown, arm outstretched in desperation that you too will reach out for me.  And trapped within this death defying, single act, all the concerns of this life vanish.

May my desperation never end.