I have been overwhelmed...

Lately, it seems all I see is people sitting around, trying to solve our culture's problems and bring about change in a fractured people. This, however, is not a new story...it's as old as civilization. We, as human beings, tend to look around, outside of ourselves, and point fingers and put our thumbs on the trigger points of contention. We try to out-debate and over-intellectualize the woes and brokenness of our social and political divides. But we forget that at the heart of a broken society is a broken people...perhaps the way to solve the problems facing our culture today is to look, not outside, but within...

When you look within, look at your heart, what do you see? 

A good person, perhaps...and who sets the standard for good?

"I've never killed anyone!" is a common response...not physically, perhaps, but what about our words and our thoughts?

Maybe you're quick to help others...only when it's convenient or it doesn't cost too much?

I know that when I look within, when I take a close look at my heart, I see wickedness...I see my selfishness, my anger, my rush to judgment of others, my arrogance and pride...and that's just my short list. I am broken, drowning, and in desperate need of saving! And until I deal with my short-comings, failures, self-centeredness and sin, I can be of no real help to the broken world around me. Sure, I could talk a good talk and put a bandage on some social issues, but hearts are not healed at the root and nothing will ever really change.

Reform is not the answer to today's biggest issues...repentance and humility are!

Over the last few weeks, I've been reading through the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. There are probably a few familiar visions you may remember...the wheel within the wheel with eyes all around and the flying creatures, the valley of dry bones...but the thing that struck me most when I was reading through the book this time was the idolatry of the children of Israel. Over and again the Lord expresses His grief and anger over the way the Israelites worshiped things rather than God Himself. They would receive with gratitude the gifts that God had given them, but soon used those gifts to worship other things, false gods, wooden idols. Bear with me, and the Word:

"'But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. You took some of your garments (with which I had dressed you) and adorned multicolored high places for yourself, and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be . You have also taken your beautiful jewelry and My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments (with which I clothed you) and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. Also, My food which I gave you - the pastry of fine flour, oil and honey which I fed you - you set it before them and sweet incense, and so it was,' says the Lord God."

Ezekiel 16-19

Then, I stopped...looked in the mirror. How have I taken the good and lovely blessings from the Giver of Life and turned them into personal idols in my life? Have the gifts become the focus of my daily life? Do I find that I cherish those things around me without remembering Whose hand they come from? Have the people around me become more important to me than their very Creator? I haven't set up bronze images in my house or built an altar in my backyard, but do I love Him with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength? Anything less than all is to stumble over the First Commandment...you shall have no other gods before Me.

If I'm not giving all my all to Him, I'm giving it to someone else, to something else. Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see the wickedness of my ways and bring me to my knees in repentance. And lead me in the way everlasting, seeing and savoring You as the most valuable treasure of my life.

Four years later...

It feels strange to come back here...so much has happened in my life over the last few years. I've been growing up, growing older, growing deeper. I am now an empty-nester, living in a 2-bedroom condo instead of a 4-bedroom colonial, working just enough hours to maintain my health insurance and keep out of trouble.  We are settling into our church well, I keep singing every chance I get, and I cherish my husband...32 years and we're still dating! I am a blessed woman!

I am where I am today because the grace of God has brought me this far...nothing I've conjured up in myself, no stick-to-it-iveness I've mustered, no pulling up on my own bootstraps are what woke me this morning. His sovereign grace and goodness are the only things that have seen me through the loss and storms I've weathered in the last two years...the loss of my mother, my father-in-law, my job, my childhood home, my church, my hometown...the only constants in my life were my sweet husband and my faithful, strong Saviour! There were days I didn't want to wake up, didn't want to read the Word or pray; days I felt caught in a swirling cyclone, not knowing which way was up and feeling numb to both joy and grief. Were it not for the fact that He alone has the words of life, I think I would have given up, broken and bruised. But He held me fast...He would not let me go. And so, out of desperation and obedience, I went to the Psalms, where I found the words of David echo in my heart...

"I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope. ...in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forever." Psalm 16: 8-9, 11

When everything gets stripped away and we realize how brief our lives really are, all we are left with is our relationship with God. And if Jesus Christ is not the One we trust to reconcile us to Father God, we have nothing when our final breath is drawn. I have become so keenly aware of that very thin veil that lies between this life and eternity, and I am compelled to find my soul satisfied in nothing less than His holy presence.  And it's only through the precious, costly shed blood of Jesus that my daily  sins and failures, my selfish and idolatrous thoughts are forgiven.

So each day, each new morning when His mercies are new, I come and receive the beauty of the gospel message...and find peace, purpose and joy in Christ alone!