In spiritual matters, human reasoning certainly is not in order; other intelligence, other skill and power, are requisite here—something to be granted by God himself and revealed through his Word.
~Martin Luther (1483-1546)
He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend. The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the traitor… Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty. Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips. That your trust may be in the Lord, I have made them known to you today, even to you… Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate, for the Lord will plead their cause and rob of life those who rob them… Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set. Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.
~Wisdom speaks in Proverbs 22
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a deep simplicity to the Life He gives us. It is simply,
Whole
Real
Free
Generous
True
Powerful
Loving
Good
Alive
Strong
And utterly impossible apart from Him.
So many of us, for so many years tried to hone the skills He had given us. We wanted to make ourselves good enough and strong enough to pay back the Love the Lover of our souls had already given to us. We owed Him, and we knew it.
There was a terrible problem though. None of what we did was good enough. There were always the rough edges of failure. And even when we were the best in the crowd, we knew that this was not enough either. The pride inherent in our perfectionism droves us – usually to ruin.
And this is may be harder for those, including this fool of a writer, who has only recently found himself to be a fool. We had so many brains and a bit of brawn. The world told us was that all we had to was to work hard and believe that we could do it.
What a crock this was – and is.
Somehow though, in the failing, and in the finding that being the best was not nearly good enough, we came to the conclusion that we needed more. We needed exceedingly, abundantly more than we had. We had come to realize that eternity is extremely large – and we are very very very small.
We finally saw our poverty.
We saw that the skills we had were but the bootstrap mechanism built into us that we might catch the tiniest glimpse of Him as He shone like the noonday sun in our eyes. Or that we might hear the tiniest whisper as His Voice, though it is stronger than many waters roaring in our ears. Or that finally we might feel His touch brush His hand through our heart as He moved time and matter and force and energy and space to crush through the stony mass in our chest.
But then we saw something else.
We. Are. Amazing!
We are like Him; nearly completely so. Everything we put our hands to – after we have put them in His – works. Really. There is no failure. There is only progress on the path He has set us on. We begin to Live as we have always been Designed to Live. Simply alive, and in Love with Him, and His creation.
Then, and only then it seems, will He take the bootstrap code we had onboard and upgrade it to a full operating system. But when He does – Oh my! We feel the strength of the Designer at work in us and through us. There comes a great and abiding joy in finally – FINALLY – being able to do something with excellence.
No guilt
No burdens
No fear
No doubt
No worries
No failure.
Can we see it? Now, it is no longer we who are trying to boot ourselves up to some level of functionality beyond our programming. No, now we are the gold-version of His writing going through infinite upgrade cycles. We will never be Him. But we will indeed be like Him. We have a beginning, but now we have no end.
So, in being immortal and already being made perfect, our strength and Love and Joy and everything else will only continue to grow on into forever. We will indeed be like Him, and as Milton said, we will be “attired with stars, reigning over death and chance, and thee oh time!”
So again, are you trying and failing? Stop now, before it is too late. The death and destruction inherent in our failed and failing efforts to boot ourselves up will eventually fail altogether. Boot code only has so many lines. Put your trust in the Designer as He weaves the open-ended, infinite story He has written for you. Tonight is your night beloved. Time to find where the Joy really is.
