In my own being, I could not exist very long as a Christian without the inner consciousness of the presence and nearness of God! I can only keep right by keeping the fear of God on my soul and delighting in the fascinating rapture of worship. I am sorry that the powerful sense of godly fear is a missing quality in churches today. The fear of God is that “astonished reverence” of which the saintly Faber wrote. I would say that it may grade anywhere from its basic element—the terror of the guilty soul before a holy God—to the fascinated rapture of the worshiping saint. There are few unqualified things in our lives, but I believe that the reverential fear of God, mixed with love and fascination and astonishment and adoration, is the most enjoyable state and the most purifying emotion the human soul can know. A true fear of God is a beautiful thing, for it is worship; it is love; it is veneration. It is a high moral happiness because God is!
~ AW Tozer
Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His name; tell of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts! Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth!
~ from Psalm 96
Oh beloved, it is true, though we live like it is not. We are one with Him. And this is the most enigmatic of truths: We are holy. We are completely set apart to the One – and only One – who can set us free.
But in our freedom, we have the ability to live like we have always lived. We have the ability to act as though we were autonomous. We, in our relationship with G_d, have the ability to act as if He does not exist. Love does this, for it does not force people into It’s mold.
However, in living as though we are apart from Him, we don’t really go anywhere. Rather, what we do is to soil the chambers of intimacy we could have with Him. We invite thoughts and images and fears and circumstances and objects to contaminate the space we have with Him.
We open the floodgates, and in pours the sewage of the fallen world.
Too much news
Too much death
Too much sin
Too much worry
Too much fear
Too much lust
Too much of everything that does not matter.
The distractions are dizzying at first, then numbing. And the weird thing about all of this is that though we are full of bilge, the dry emptiness in our being seems to keep us starving. It is as though we are entering into malnutrition on full stomachs. There is an example of this in the physical world, where people on some islands will eat mud pies to keep their stomachs full, even though they are starving to death.
There is a solution though, and it is exceedingly simply. Stop.
Come away beloved. Come away. There is no need to even clean the place you have dirtied. Simply agree with Him that it needs His work. Let Him clean up the mess. However, there is one thing you can do, and this is exceedingly simple as well: Look at Him.
His beauty is beyond measure
His wisdom is unsurpassed
His strength is unrivalled
He is Life itself
In His Presence, all fear is gone.
His pleasures are real, and cause no grief.
Can we see it? There is one other thing you can do. When those other thoughts come (and they will), don’t even give them a chance. They may come packaged as something else, with new labels and reasons for entrance.
But this you know, anything other than Him has never worked. So, anything outside of your communion with Him, is not Him. Ignore it like you would ignore someone sending you a text when you are making Love with your spouse. Because this is exactly what you are doing.
So, are you feeling the distractions of the world knocking on the door of your mind and soul and spirit? This fool of a writer feels it quite often. But what i am learning is that there is nothing out there that will enter my mind and make it better. No, the world has nothing to offer in comparison to His magnificent beauty.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to ignore the right things.
