Shadow Bound [Part 2]

 

Can you give up what it looks like?

A question that haunts my soul. The shadow of insufficiency that anchors me to the ground is only a byproduct of the grander complex contained within this simple question; “can you give up what it looks like?” I am learning more and more each day living in such close community that no one’s relationship with Christ is the same. He speaks to us and works in us in different ways.

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”  Ecclesiastes 1: 9

At some point in time another person has walked through what I am going through, so I can surely seek advice and guidance from a fellow saint. I do not mean our relationships are mutually exclusive. I just don’t want the point to get lost in seeking advice from other people, while I have the opportunity to walk it out in faith following Jesus, who lives within me. I want to grow in my relationship with Christ through firsthand experience not 3^rd person narratives.  

When I think about what it will look like to truly die to oneself I am baffled by the amount of variables that reveal themselves. There seems to be a very thin line to walk between being trapped in the shadow of the flesh, and denying oneself to the extent ones consciousness feeds the very thing he or she is trying to deny. I could be deceived that I am actually dying to myself. It seems to me before one can truly live in abandonment for the Lord he or she must first abandon perception.

Jesus says,

“For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10: 35-37

Can I give that up?

What if my relationship with the Lord looked so different that the people dearest to me, even spiritual leaders in my life, looked on and said “Dex is deceived”? What if none of the good The Lord does through me is ever seen, or never makes any headlines? Could I live without being talked about, or without even recognition from others that I am a Christian?

It appears that the battle against perception will be something we all war against throughout our lives in this glorious yet wretched world. I constantly have to ask myself if I am doing things to be perceived in a certain way or not. Praise the Lord he allows me to walk through questions and trials such as this in faith and with a resplendent hope. As I sit here typing today a couple weeks removed from my original thoughts on this subject and halfway around the world in the Philippines it is a privilege and honor to say I have walked through things in faith. Not by any system because there are no steps to faith, but through the grace of our glorious father.

And through these trials and questions Scripture says,

“In this rejoice though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 1: 6-7

I just can’t fake it. If I am to believe, it is going to be genuine. And thanks be unto God he is not beyond reproach of the questions that come along his children’s path to righteousness. He tests and refines us through his fire and there is power in genuine faith.

Scripture says,