I love the fields and streams and hills and valleys. On top, down below, in the water and in the grass. We revisit our childhood, perfumed memories, and the glory of it —a sense of awe and discovery, a sense of the mysterious, the secretive, the fantastic. What a gift God gave to us to take pleasure in! A small animal, a bird, a fish and a mushroom are enormous wonders, and so the more exotic frog, toad, bumble bee and spider. There is a time for it, a while, a season.
I rode a horse in fear, (a pony really), a roller coaster in frantic. I drove a car, (stick shift notwithstanding), I manned a train, an airplane, and a floating boat. I saw the Grand Canyon and oceans too, I visited the granite dells, and Sedona, that new-age paradise. My curiosity stirred me to look and look further. I sought for more.
I discovered a rush, then a high, then I sought the secret of a woman, then all pleasure at any cost. “What a beautiful world God has made!” so I mused. I persistently explored the prohibited side in naivety, the forbidden, the wanton. My companions followed and I escorted them, and they me. We had a brave new world going. We conquered.
Pleasure inhibitors made themselves known also. These I learned to ignore and cast away. Warnings against fun, these bad boys could not co-exist with my life as an explorer.
To my chagrin all came tumbling down in spite of my insistent attempts to support it. The debris consisted of dismay, emptiness, and disillusionment. These states I pushed backward, still placing my hopes on my “tried and true” pleasures. My partying then became an addiction, my wantonness a menace, my frivolity an attitude.
In a moment God reached down, touched my soul and saved my life. My vacuumized, lonely, and beat up psyche, He suddenly filled; even though my deceitful capability had obscured the reality of the frightful plight of my soul. When it came to the light, that condition became self evident.
Well, sometimes still we are disappointed and sometimes distraught. Can happen easily, and can lead to a dangerous place again. It will take us and open us to the “who cares” of life, the sense of our value gets stricken a blow. Events, people, and things do the job on us. Much disappointment relates to our own selves and deceit returns to its old job.
The heavy-laden must come back to Jesus. He can give us rest and insight. Heaviness through manifold temptations can be a season of our lives; so too, the heavy burden and deceit. Only Jesus can lift the weight, assuage the hurt, open the blind eyes, and comfort the brokenhearted just as He did, day one.
He is the “glory and lifter of our heads.” Thank you Jesus!! Also, “O lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death.” See, He is present in our trouble to help in time of need; He Advocates for us by exposing the truth of reconciliation with the Father. We can cast all of our care on Him, He cares for us.
So, when cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches, lust of other things, choke the Word, “Let no man deceive you,” says Christ of the last days. Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse then. Stay close to the light.
Now, “a wounded spirit who can bear?” That wound consists of a very real feeling, heat of a blow, an interpretation in reactionary creativity, a fiery emotional capacity-stealing usurper; all filling up and displacing the spirit-peace of Christ effected equilibrium. If there is bitter envying and strife in the heart, lie not, glory not against the truth.
In closing, please allow the love and the light of Christ heal your aching heart. Look diligently least any man fail the grace of God!!! Let Him show you the amazing insulation of the Cross, the separation of death, the hiding of burial, the forever dismissing of death through resurrection, and the far, far, far aboveness of ascension. Then just sit down and enjoy His love. The wonders of His creation will return. love ya