#27 - Heading Home

I have not written anything for a while. Not only that but I’ve not studied anything for a while, I have struggled, a great struggle to pray for such a long time. I start to pray and then my mind wanders away. It does it as if sneaking off out of a crowd and where it goes I never know.  It’s almost as though one wakes up and thinks “How did I get here”. You don’t remember the journey or even leaving to travel somewhere, You just know that you were at one place and now several hours later you are at another. Then you remember you were praying for seconds and somehow you left the secret place and ended up going through a large portion of your day not even realizing you left the other.  It’s crazy hard to explain, but it is so different from anything I have ever experienced before. I’ve not written anything because there is nothing to write, there has been no study and no listening, just wandering, aimlessly wandering. 

 

During these times you take inventory of your life. You look to see where it came off the rails. Where you got off track. You try and look back up the path from the place you have just come and you can’t look back far enough to see where the diversion took place. It must have been just over the horizon. But here is the real issue, it’s in the fact that you can’t go back. The path is time and time you have but once. It’s impossible to return. 

 

So what now... I sit here thinking it through. Can I even remember how I got here?  It’s so unclear, like a dream.  Did it really happen? So I think back to a vague feeling a reference, a call to repent. Did I repent?  I did not. I gave lip service, I gave some things, but I did not lay it all down.  Why didn’t I lay it all down and turn around?  It was because I’ve done it so many times before. Always returning to my vomit and lapping it up like it is a delicacy. I’m tired of failing You Father... I’m great at turning over a new leaf and yet the slightest wind of indifference will come along and flip me back to my original state.  And then there I am again, just the same old person, living life like everyone else who denies You.   

 

I was struck by this scripture this morning.  It’s the last verse in John 7, and it pops up out of the blue, v. 53 “And everyone went to his own house.”

 

I think about this scripture this morning... It’s pulling me in several directions, but ultimately it leads to one place.. my house.  At the end of John Chapter 7, you have the Sadducees and Pharisees, discussing Jesus together in a meeting, another “what are we going to do about this man” meeting that is. Many of them believe He is leading the house of Israel away from God, and they are already looking to destroy Him. These are the ones that should be leading the people of Isreal to God and yet they are leading them away, practically screaming “Don’t follow Him.”  What is it that would cause this?  It’s a lack of relationship. I believe fully in the counsel of others, but ultimately, we are responsible for ourselves. We’ve sought out counsel, which is the easy part, but then it’s time to go home. If you have received bad counsel, you have to go home with that and work it out. Many of those men in that assembly walked home that night, alone with their thoughts and the voice of God screaming inside of them, “This is the way,” and they denied it. Yet there were a few like Nicodemus, who longed for the truth, who went home with a heart that said whatever You want it’s Yours. Ultimately when we stand before God we will each stand before Him alone. We will not have our counselors, will not have our Spouse, our children, or even a close friend, and we each will have to account for what we did with Him. To be clearer, what we did with Jesus?  Take that to your home, work it out now, you and God, and whatever He asks for give it to Him. 

 

God reveals Himself to those who want Him.  The beautiful story of Simeon in Luke Chapter 2.  It’s ten verses of what it looks like to both seek and find Him.  I long to have a heart like Simeon’s, it wasn’t about greatness or promotion, it was about one thing, finding Jesus. 

 

Father,

I come to You with great lack. I ask You to know my heart, and if it is off, I place it in Your hands to heal it. And if it is broken beyond repair, I ask You to create in me a new one. I fear that it is broken beyond repair, which makes me so thankful that You are the creator, but more than that... You are the lover of my soul. I’m so tired of the distance, I miss You so much. I’m home, alone, and I invite You into this most intimate place, where it is just me with You. Speak to me, counsel me, love on me, take me.

 

In Jesus name,

Amen