Eyes of the Tired - Week 24
I’ve been a little tired this week and haven’t wrote one letter to the King. In fact, the last time I engaged with Him in that capacity was on February 23rd and it seems like forever ago. I can’t say honestly that I’ve intentionally poured my heart out to our Lord in quite some time but instead I have been sporadically directing my thoughts to Him in and out of awareness.
As you know, if you follow these weekly entries, work has made it challenging for me to fully disclose my faith. Over the past three weeks I’ve felt withdrawn and timid but thankfully there have been moments where Jesus’ name just kinda flew out of my mouth in a room full of colleagues. True, if they were listening or not, I do not know, but I have had conservations with some of them which suggests that they were.
Now as I sit here writing, I reflect and mediate on the ways that we believers share or hinder the Gospel of Truth. It’s not always in our words but dare I say, more so in our actions. If we’re constantly trying to figure out how to bring up the Salvation amongst us in conversation, perhaps we push it further away than if we just allow His timing to provide it. God has been so kind to me in easing the tension I felt in quickly trying to introduce Him to our office and allowed for His way to slowly infect our work. How gracious! While it’s only been three weeks, God has been and is doing more than I know and I’m reminded that it is the same for my personal walk with Him.
My relationship with Jesus has not been an overnight transformation or even a hurried meeting. It is constantly being evolved through continual meetings, even in the times where it feels stagnant. My relationship with the Truth has steadily been revealed to me and there’s more I come to enjoy as He proceeds to affect my heart. But trying to stay focused on the Kingdom is challenging and trying to exercise the purpose of our creation is even harder because we are created for His glory and the worship of Him!
This is challenging not only because of our personal feebleness but also because of our surroundings, because of what our world is putting in front of us. Subtly, but powerfully, we are told what to seek after, we are influenced in our sight, and conditioned by what we hear. I think about the times of Moses or the times of Christ and what their society must have been like. They memorized the Scriptures in their free time, they spoke of God regularly, and sought after Him in a way that seems lost these days. However, even in those times and those dedications, we as a people were impatient, always looking for something greater, something more to do with our time. How beaten we get on that path, trying to find something else to fill us with joy, or with purpose.
Everything is a cycle, history repeats itself, and I’m beginning to see the revival of Spirit amongst us, as well as the importance for seeking Truth. But with that being said, I’m also seeing the division amongst us, the hiding of Truth in rules or regulations, and the striking explosion of a desperate attempt to highlight other half truths or the distortions of It. We have collectively been separating ourselves to push for issues that seem inhumane or unjust, while we should be pushing for unity in His love. Yes, some may say that’s what’s happening now, but I can’t clearly see how that’s true. All things fall under Jesus’s domain and if we were focused or angry at the depletion of His name then perhaps all other gratuitous situations or unfounded biases would be remedied. Just saying.
I’m also saying this could be done in His light. Not in a way that segregates or blames, not in a way that condemns or berates, but in a way that is aligned with the love of our Savior. It has been said by Dr. Ravi Zacharias that, “if love is lost, then God is lost, and I do not want to lose God in our conversation.” I think that brilliantly sums up what we should collectively be seeking. The love of the One King, the Alpha and the Omega, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the Beginning and the End. Of course we can disagree with our fellow persons. Of course our views can be different. But we should never lose sight of the reality that, “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”
I have a few friends that openly profess their love of Jesus but at the same time speak vile things from their mouth, demeaning others, regarding them as unworthy or condemned. They divide the rest of the world from believing in the grace of God because if that’s what it means to trust in Jesus, then they want no part of it. In that, I tend to agree. It’s hard for me to hear those things from my friends and believe that Jesus is working in their heart, but I am not the Judge, and I am not always privy to the work the Holy Spirit is doing within them. I find that I myself have actions that could be considered just as hurtful to the Gospel and often think while Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, “I am the worst of them all.”
However, this does not stop me from continuing to pray. I pray for my heart to love our Savior more and for Him to soften the hearts of my friends who speak such ungodly things. I pray for the world to see His Truth and the guidance of His Spirit to captivate the lost, guiding them back home to our Father. It’s in His name of grace and mercy, the love of Jesus that I pray, amen!