Thursday, August 2, 2007

unintended witness

we have taken away what is rightfully His. His authority. it begins with one compromise. then another. and the pattern ensues until it has become rationalized and justified. and we may not realize, but we have told Him with our choices, "i know better than You." we have hurt His heart and care not that we have done so.

these past months, i have struggled to understand "delighting" in the Law of the Lord, in His ordinances, in His statutes. to experience true joy from what He has deemed Law has seemed just out of reach. and now, i understand. i clutched the Bible close to my heart, begging God to shield me from the replays and echos of what i had witnessed. my mind and heart ached a true ache and that is the only way i can find to describe it. for the defilement of His Law had been so blatant and jarred me awake. a peace overcame me as i held it to my chest and willed it to for a barrier between the me and the memory. and the Psalms were brought forward. "make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for i delight in it." delight. in. it. a smile came instantly as i rolled back and forth, clinging to the physical object containing His truth. and i understood that delight. an acknowledgement of how beautiful His Law is.

for each commandment is not without reason or used as means to control us. rather, it is set in place to protect, to enliven, to enrich. do we even understand this? each Law obeyed, provides us with health: physical, emotional, spiritual. forgive- and we find freedom. abstain- and we find something that fills. serve- and we find purpose. do we still not see that His Laws are right? do we still think we know better than the One who created our bodies, our minds, our souls? i ache.

but most importantly, and i fear we forget this consistently, to obey His commandments is to bring God the glory He deserves. do we even understand this? the importance of giving Him love? how much has He give us and we do not return it by honoring His Law. to abide by His Law is to honor Him. to honor Him is to love Him. to love Him is to bring Him glory. yet even His servants are failing to care for His heart before their own. we have forgotten to care for the heart that gave us ours.

how can we look to His Laws with disregard when He earned the right to our obedience by creating our very beings and the universe in which we live? how can we rationalize, justify, and compromise them away when they are so clearly stated? my heart cries for His feelings. how must it feel to see the world justifying away all that He has set to care for us? and how must it feel to be brought into those justifications and actions and situations because His spirit is within us as we commit them? we bring Him into our defilements. it is necessary for any in authority to establish rules for the sake of those over which they have authority. we understand this in our understanding of parents, teachers, employers, yet we do not grasp it in our understanding of our Creator. empathy for Him has penetrated me, finally. how have we come to defile His Laws and be unremorseful of the hurt it causes Him?

i feel ill. to think that His very servants, His believers, those who claim they live for Him... have forgotten and failed to take joy and delight in the Laws He has set. how can we accept the responsibility and role that it is to be a servant and yet disregard His rules at the same time? one cannot be without the other. why has He not fired us from His work when we so clearly sneak through and around His Laws?

one cannot be without the other.

a servant, one cannot be, without honoring His Law.

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