This is a conversation that I have had with myself many times so I thought I’d share it…it switches from 1st person to 3rd person. I think there’s even some 2nd person in there (but I can’t be sure).
My default setting is detached. When I allow myself to fall into “casual”, I am colder. Walls quickly go up. I am independent. I can do it on my own.
And how frustrating that is because it’s so untrue. I can’t do it on my own. I know this for a fact because man, have I tried. Still, if I am not intentional in my thinking; my doing; my feeling; I quickly and effortlessly slide back into my human skin – my human ways. This used to be very upsetting. I like to start a project then finish it with a “job well done”. However, I have accepted, the project that is myself is a life-long journey.
It is work to follow. It is work to have faith. After all, “faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see”. And how much easier is it to rely on the things that we can see, and touch, and interact with in a very easy way. But these things that we so easily put our faith in fail us, each and every time. Maybe not at first, but eventually, any physical possession we have, we will lose. Even our own lives that we can feel like we own, will be gone. At any moment, our life can end and in 50 years, our lives here are forgotten. Few, if any, will even remember our name. Therefore, I know that this life can’t be about me. This life can’t be about the things that I own or that I can see. It can’t be about these things because these things don’t fill me up. Things and people always leave me wanting more. So then, if I always want more – if nothing on earth can satisfy – no relationship, no job, no amount of money, no season or location can truly and completely satisfy my longing for something – there must be something more.
So then by deduction, I arrive at the thought that if nothing here on earth can satisfy, there must be something outside of this earth that can. C.S. Lewis speaks directly to this thought, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
But this other world can seem so far. It can sound like a story. I feel like this is especially true because our culture, for the most part, ignores it. In other countries, people are being tortured and killed for their faith. They are forced to choose. Here, we are not forced to choose, so many of us simply don’t. We ignore it and we chase things and possessions that we see and they fail to satisfy but we often think that the next (job, relationship, pay raise) will fill us up. And when I was at that place, I thought, “this can’t be all there is!” And I KNOW that I KNOW that I KNOW (Joyce Meyer 
) there is more. He is more.
If we read what Jesus tells us it all sounds backwards to what is preached to us everywhere else. But that would make sense, since what we try and what our world tells us doesn’t work…HE tells us that we are made to live for other people. We’re made to give and to love and to forgive and put ourselves last and to serve. So my default setting is in direct conflict with the way God intends for me to live. And sometimes it’s hard, and it can be frustrating…but it’s worth it, HE is worth it. What is the alternative? The alternative is to go through this short life and live for me, collecting as many things as I can and clinging to the temporary. I won’t do it. That gives me no joy and leaves me empty.
So let me live this one short life to add to a kingdom that is eternal. Let me enjoy the journey, and the people, and the things, but let me hold loosely to them all.
Let my name be forgotten but let my life point to the only name that matters – the only name that lives forever.
Amen.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now his is seated at the place of honor beside God’s throne.” Hebrews 12:1-2
