Got To Go Through the Door

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.  – 1 John 2:17

I woke early this morning, and I was praying.  That’s what I called it.  What I was really doing was worrying over balances in various monetary accounts while bringing to the Lord’s attention that I had been pretty faithful and generous lately in giving to His work.  It was as though my words were written on a screen in my head.  The word ‘I’ stood out and, though I didn’t see it, I knew there was a question mark by it. 

I’ve heard time and again that I am merely a steward.  Everything I have, the Lord has given me.  I am giving back only that which is His.  What do you give the God who has everything?  That was part of God’s response, but it went beyond that.  Who is this ‘I’?  Is it not written that ‘I’ have been crucified with Christ, that ‘I’ no longer live but it is Christ who lives in me? 

It’s not just, What have I got to give?  But WHO is doing the giving?  I’m not giving to God; God wants to give through me.  And money or whatever is the least of it.  It is being available and yielded to do His will. 

Mostly, in my case, I think it is getting my arguments, reasonings, rationalizations, and desires out of the way to clear the channel for God’s blessings to flow.  Why should I worry and stress about things when it is clear that God is the One moving and working and doing all this?  I know already from experience, some of which I know I have related, that the Lord has never put me in hole He didn’t already have a plan to get me out of.  He has put me in some tight spots.  They seemed that way to me going in.  In reality they were simply narrow doorways opening into new broader vistas. 

There is a narrow way we have to pass through.  The will of God can be an extremely strait, restrictive passage, but it is a passage to something.  It’s not a place where we will have to live.  We are going to live where this tight, constraining corridor takes us.  We’ll have plenty of room there -- until we come to the next doorway, and there will be another.  

What we learn in passing through the strait gates of God’s will is how worldly accretions have built up on us, like barnacles on a ship’s hull.  It all has to be scraped off now and then.  There are some things we have to leave behind when passing through the narrow way, and we are better for it. 

What Matters

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. —- Joshua 1:8 (ESV)

This is an accidental blog. Initially, I created a blogger ID to more easily comment on One Cosmos. I subsequently created the blog in order to avoid off-topic issues and rants that I might have otherwise posted on OC; it is a relief valve of sorts. My father was dying at the time that I started it, and, even at my well-past-the-middle chronological age, I knew that his departure would require me to make changes. It provided a convenient place to shake, rattle, and roll out some of my thoughts and see if they come up snake-eyes or natural, or if I have to roll eight the hard way as is sometimes the case.

The reason that I have continued is that it gives me a good excuse to meditate on Scripture, on the Divine Nature, revelation, and life in general. I consider a post successful not so much because it generates comments from my numerically small albeit intellectually vast audience — though I always enjoy hearing what others think, but rather because I have in some way expressed God's perspective. I certainly make no claim to do that on a consistent basis. I have never been completely successful in doing so and don't expect to be. I will keep trying. Yoda was wrong. For the truly meaningful challenge, there are many tries for every do. In a sense, each try is a not-do, but not-try is the ultimate not-do.

I stand at the apex and watch the next grain of sand fall into place. Each moment of time is a new, unique part in the pattern of our lives. No matter what anyone looking in from the outside may say, we know that no two of those crystal structures are exactly alike. Each is destined to differ in shape and color, in time and place and purpose. Each will find its resting place as it forms the rising pyramid of past and present, mountainous in majesty, possessed of a peace both terrible and beautiful. Each grain will raise us higher, closer to the Source until we are able to pass through that strait, that narrow way into the upper chamber which is no chamber at all but the infinite, ever-expanding Presence.