Withdrawal’s Best Stuff

A great statement and wise observation, it grabs us because the folly of human nature often exposes itself so loudly. Hoffer above describes a person who thinks wrongly, but why? We can call him or her a legalistic thinker, because they view life as a proving, a measuring up to a standard, a trying to please or appease a serious onlooker who holds their fate.

It’s no shock to us that this law-beaten type of individual must turn their mind toward evasion tactics and ploys of excuse making. Their life is drudgery. They stay with a project for a while and try it on. They wait for the prospect of fulfillment —on their own terms. After a while the novelty wears off. A carefully crafted excuse moves them on to other things.

Something is missing for these precious folks and it is the freedom to fail. They lack the abandon to dig in to their contemplation, get feet and hands soiled, wash, and then go at it again tomorrow. Sadly their latitude is not wide enough to cause them to stay with a thing, explore it’s underpinnings, see it through to its culmination, extract the bounty of it, and make it a home. They would be too embarrassed at their imperfections showing and so the waiver, loop-hole, or self-indulgence surfaces.

Be not dismayed if this sounds familiar, Christ came to set the captives free, my friends. The days of painful inhibition and chagrin have their melt in love’s atmosphere of nurturing emancipation. God’s church, Christ’s body, the habitation where Spirit dwells, provides just such a place for supportive fostering.

Perhaps, the prospect remains not so comfortable for some still. As a cherishing incubator to grow in, love, nevertheless, obliges us to welcome the newcomers. Love, yes, “agape” love pabulums folks to a desire for the healing of God’s Word, of Calvary’s daily exchange, of a deep calling unto deep, and of a realization of a personal destiny. Love’s vehicle, the Word of His grace in Acts 20:32, takes the hindering burdens off of us one by one.

As the need for saving face through personality shrouding dissipates, the Christ of every believer frees. Excuses become moot, guarded lies obsolete themselves; indifference fades with vested interests, ruined apologies find sincerity, and cowardice vanishes in confidence.

I want to say a word about the two in the picture. These guys got GUTZ. If I could give the term my own acronymed twist it would go: “Grace Undoing The Zappers.” All the zappers of personality inhibitors, fear of failure, lack of external provisions,
and need for excuses have been undone.

Instead they gained God’s grace, Unconditional love, Togetherness, and Zeal for God’s work. Love