On Hiatus
This blog will likely remain silent for quite a while – my prediction is that, owing to extensive travel plans, I won’t have an opportunity to post here but once or twice (if at all) until the middle of September, so please check back then (or RSS)!
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I wonder if I stepped outside of myself momentarily (or for a couple days), or if distraction got the best of me, or if I was curious about the power of power, or if I just felt like playing with fire might possibly be a palatable notion.
Perhaps what I long for most right now is a re-centering of my spiritual life. While I recognize that our sanctification in Jesus is a lifelong process, I also know that I can look at parts of my own life (including the part I’m thinking of right now) and see for myself that I’ve taken the crown from God’s head, unbended the previously-bowed knee in my heart, and proclaimed my own sovereignty in my life. And this is all incredibly, grossly, deeply and sadly wrong.
Our lives can only be performed but once. Every day, we make choices about how we react to the changes of scene and setting around us, and we choose at every moment whether to trust God as director, producer, and screenwriter of our lives — or whether we will usurp His authority and pursue our own agendas.
I know this from recent experience: that personal pursuit can feel so satisfying in the moment. It feels like freedom at last, and an unfettered reclamation of a previously-restrained order. And the power of power is alluring.
But… as the afterglow gives way to aftermath, and as we walk away from that glorious flicker of an exciting but seemingly harmless flame, things come into focus. Eventually, we realize that material harm has occurred, even though we can’t see it directly in the tangible or visible world. Disobedience or even simple disregard for God’s standards and desires have power to incur significant spiritual damage. It’s that from which I seek healing.
So… while I’ve been looking forward to this upcoming trip for many reasons, I’ve tacked this new one onto the list recently. This long trip — to foreign lands and entirely different environments that pose challenges departing radically from the present norm — is the ideal setting for serious soul-searching. It’s far away from the temptations I’d faced before, and I’ll surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ, and confronted with a world possessing deeper and bigger problems than those in my own.