21 July 2018 - loosening our grip

Today's Readings (Audio)

For the wicked man glories in his greed,
and the covetous blasphemes, sets the LORD at nought.
The wicked man boasts, "He will not avenge it";
"There is no God," sums up his thoughts. 

We often approach life in terms of what we can get away with. We think about doing the minimum required to keep God happy and then taking a larger chunk of our lives and living for ourselves alone. Our mindset implicitly says that if we go to Church on Sunday, pray occasionally, and give some money to charity God won't notice how we decide to spend the majority of our time. But God does see the things we do that aren't specifically religious. He sees the things we do that aren't blatant mortal sins. He sees the motives hidden in our apparently innocent me time, both the good and the bad.

God's way in to our lives when we've got him off in his own walled garden is often to upset business as usual.

Therefore thus says the LORD:
Behold, I am planning against this race an evil
from which you shall not withdraw your necks;
Nor shall you walk with head high,
for it will be a time of evil.

He shakes the shakable so only what is rooted in him remains. He works with our hard hearts so that we can gradually relinquish more and more or the control we hold over our lives into his hands.

For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts (see Haggai 2:6-8)

So let's loosen our grip on the parts of life that we secretly believe that God doesn't see. Whether or not what we our doing in those parts of our lives needs to change our relationship to it definitely does need to change so that God can be first in all things. 

Jesus withdraws from places where he is not welcomed. He cannot bless those parts of our lives over which he is not LORD. But he does draw near to those who seek him. Those who make room for his gentle presence experience his healing touch.

When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place.
Many people followed him, and he cured them all,
but he warned them not to make him known.