It amazes me how Jesus associates happy people as those who are poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). So contrary from the world's definition and experience. What does being poor in spirit mean anyway? I wrestle with this question more and more as I think about what it would take to feel happy all the time, which is not reality this side of heaven. The happiness discussed in Matthew 5:3, sermon-on-the-mount-kind of happiness is not happiness defined by the world because this world is very very corrupt and very very broken.
I am also learning that nothing good lives in me because of my falleness, that even though I can have good intentions, I do not have the power to follow through on them because I am bottom line--weak. My attention and affections are divided more than I am willing to admit. This world around me appears good to my senses from the outside, but not best for my heart and soul at all times looking from the inside.Yet I cave into pressures too great for me to handle on my own. I think its incredible that my life is not some random creation, but that I was created for a relationship and that my relationship was broken with God when Adam and Eve chose their own way and believed a lie that the enemy thought he could get away with. They had to be honest and they had to confess and they had to tell God what they had done and could not cover it up. So what makes me think that I can do the same thing? I too have to face and admit to Him everything I cover up, secrets that have been locked up in the closet for some time, pains unexpressed, and sorrow full of tears.
I can see how the breaking down of my own spirit and emotions and feelings need the power of the Holy Spirit to experience brokeness more in order to come alive and be in greater touch with wounds that need healing, restoration, grace, and love. Christ showed me the way up is down, humility and brokeness must come before happiness and joy can be present. Its hard, but so needed I am finding in order to feel fully alive in Christ, in order to be in touch with the real person I am in Christ under neath my skin. If not, isolation and and keeping people at bay become my spiraling problem.
I am learning that nothing good lives in my sinful nature; that I do have the desire to follow God, but am powerless to live His way. This is why my greatest need is Christ. He is more than able. And He is the only one who can give unconditional love and grac that is overwhelming, too good to be true I feel so many times. And yet He is true.
His death on the cross for me was an expensive gift that I never asked for and yet He pursued me still. He fought for me on the cross. He saw me in my most unacceptable state and knew there was no way even if I tried that I could rescue myself from my own hurts done to me and the hurts I have done to others. He came for those who are sick, for people sick of these pains that will not be healed a part from Him. Only then is the happiness He describes in Matthew 5:3 possible.
The road to experience the happiness he teaches is truly not easy to travel. Even the broken road is narrow and costly. It means letting go and letting Him have it all. I wonder why he gives me mercy in exchange for my brokeness when there is so much of it. I am thankful that I am not alone on this journey and that I have Christ at my side. I am thankful for the promise that he will never leave me nor forsake me because He loves me.
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