"Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right Hand shall hold me." Psalm 139: 7-10
Have you ever felt the pain of following Christ? The pain of the sacrifices you have chosen to make, the things that He has taken away, the things that have not gone the way you wanted, the broken hopes and dreams? I would be lying if I said I have not. So many times I have found myself screaming out to God in my heart, wishing that there wouldn't be so much pain, wishing that there was an easier way. Self-denial and crucifixion is undoubtedly a painful and testing process. The cross of Christ is often a very heavy one to bear, a great interruption in our lives as one friend put it.
And time and time again I find myself running from God, doing the things that He tells me not to do, choosing to do things my own way and work things out for myself. We are no different from Adam in the Garden of Eden. The rules were set, but we break them. We will not be content until we have tried things our own way, against God's wishes. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Jer. 17:9
But time and time again I see painfully how my own wayward choices and decisions lead me to my own destruction and doom. Time and time again I see how I ruin the wonderful things God has given me with my stupidity, stubbornness and sinfulness. Time and time again I experience the pain of despair that I have brought upon myself by not obeying Him and I find myself wishing that I had had the strength and will to choose Him when it counted.
And so I find that no matter whatever path I choose to run down aside from God's, it always ends in more and more despair. The more I run, the worse it gets. And I am eternally thankful to God, for it is His grace that enables me to see my folly. He could just leave me alone and let me run further and further away, forever lost in my foolishness. But because He loves me He chooses to show me the folly of my ways and turn me back. And at the end of the day I always find that God's way, His way, is always the best, is always the one that leads to life. Where can I go from Your Spirit, and where can I run from Your presence? You always gently, lovingly, lead me back to Yourself, the one place where I can find the joy that I so seek.
The cross of Christ is an interruption, a painful one, but it interrupts us from pursuing our plans and ways that ultimately lead to despair, and sets us back on the right track. It is a blessing, not a burden. To crucify our passions and desires and choose God's way is often a very painful and difficult step to take. To follow our own way would be so much easier; to choose God requires us to draw up every bit of will and strength within us, grit our teeth, kick ourselves hard and let go of all we hoped for. But once we have done so, once we have crossed that hurdle, we will soon see in His time, the joys that come with choosing and honouring Him. "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." Matt 16:25. Read the great Christian writers of our age- C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, and so forth, and you will find this truth echoed all through their writings.
Climbers on Mount Everest, before they reach the summit, will have to get past one final obstacle, a steep smooth wall called the Hillary's Step. It is tough, but once they get past it, they will easily and quickly get to the summit. Choosing God is like crossing that step. Massive, often seemingly uncrossable; but once it has been crossed by the grace of God, we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, the answer to all our worries and woes.
Wherever you are, desperately running your own way, or having suffered the consequences and now humbly returning to God, or having chosen God's way but finding the Cross increasingly hard to bear, take heart. "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13
"The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Have you ever felt the pain of following Christ? The pain of the sacrifices you have chosen to make, the things that He has taken away, the things that have not gone the way you wanted, the broken hopes and dreams? I would be lying if I said I have not. So many times I have found myself screaming out to God in my heart, wishing that there wouldn't be so much pain, wishing that there was an easier way. Self-denial and crucifixion is undoubtedly a painful and testing process. The cross of Christ is often a very heavy one to bear, a great interruption in our lives as one friend put it.
And time and time again I find myself running from God, doing the things that He tells me not to do, choosing to do things my own way and work things out for myself. We are no different from Adam in the Garden of Eden. The rules were set, but we break them. We will not be content until we have tried things our own way, against God's wishes. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Jer. 17:9
But time and time again I see painfully how my own wayward choices and decisions lead me to my own destruction and doom. Time and time again I see how I ruin the wonderful things God has given me with my stupidity, stubbornness and sinfulness. Time and time again I experience the pain of despair that I have brought upon myself by not obeying Him and I find myself wishing that I had had the strength and will to choose Him when it counted.
And so I find that no matter whatever path I choose to run down aside from God's, it always ends in more and more despair. The more I run, the worse it gets. And I am eternally thankful to God, for it is His grace that enables me to see my folly. He could just leave me alone and let me run further and further away, forever lost in my foolishness. But because He loves me He chooses to show me the folly of my ways and turn me back. And at the end of the day I always find that God's way, His way, is always the best, is always the one that leads to life. Where can I go from Your Spirit, and where can I run from Your presence? You always gently, lovingly, lead me back to Yourself, the one place where I can find the joy that I so seek.
The cross of Christ is an interruption, a painful one, but it interrupts us from pursuing our plans and ways that ultimately lead to despair, and sets us back on the right track. It is a blessing, not a burden. To crucify our passions and desires and choose God's way is often a very painful and difficult step to take. To follow our own way would be so much easier; to choose God requires us to draw up every bit of will and strength within us, grit our teeth, kick ourselves hard and let go of all we hoped for. But once we have done so, once we have crossed that hurdle, we will soon see in His time, the joys that come with choosing and honouring Him. "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." Matt 16:25. Read the great Christian writers of our age- C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, and so forth, and you will find this truth echoed all through their writings.
Climbers on Mount Everest, before they reach the summit, will have to get past one final obstacle, a steep smooth wall called the Hillary's Step. It is tough, but once they get past it, they will easily and quickly get to the summit. Choosing God is like crossing that step. Massive, often seemingly uncrossable; but once it has been crossed by the grace of God, we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, the answer to all our worries and woes.
Wherever you are, desperately running your own way, or having suffered the consequences and now humbly returning to God, or having chosen God's way but finding the Cross increasingly hard to bear, take heart. "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13
"The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
