It's been a while... but with a schedule and some routine, I jump back in the saddle.
I wish I hadn't been gone for so long because this post may seem somewhat random. However, life goes on and, if we allow Him, God continues to transform us. I feel different than the Cara from my last few posts. Good different. But, it feels as though you may not recognize me. Take notice of His work, not me.
I've been traveling through Jeremiah recently. Towards the end of the book, after many, many messages from the LORD through Jeremiah, I was struck by the Israelites' desire for comfort... the good life. "We will not listen to your [crazy] messages from the LORD! We will do whatever we want... For in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and had no troubles!" (44:16-17) Their words reminded me of our contemporary American culture. God's way often seems contrary to the comfortable, maybe even extreme at times, yet we are drawn to the tangible things of this earth that give temporary comfort at best.
We trust and want only that which we know and have judged as good. What we know and identify with is life as orphans. Glory and the Kingdom of Heaven are unknowns... things we fear. We crave the tangible, the experienced, the explainable. Our fears keep us craving life as orphans even though we're children of the Living God. The known is our comfort, albeit, false comfort, a lie of the Deceiver. "Because you have trusted your wealth and skill, you will be taken captive." (48:7) We are prisoners of the Liar held there by our own fears of the unknown.
The best example of this concept is described by Russel Moore in his book Adopted for Life. He describes the reaction of his two sons, whom he adopted from Russia, as they were leaving the orphanage. "The trauma of leaving the orphanage was unexpected to me because I knew how much better these boys' life would soon be. I thought they knew too. But they had no idea. They couldn't conceive of anything other than the status quo. My whispering to my boys, ' You won't miss that orphanage' is only a shadow of something I should have known already. Our Father tells us that we too are unable to grasp what's waiting for us - and how glorious it really is. It's hard for us to long for an inheritance to come, a harmonious Christ-ruled universe, when we've never seen anything like it...
"We must learn to be children, not orphans. When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure, it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run.
"My whispering to my boys, 'You won't miss that orphanage' is only a shadow of something I should have known. God pronounces Israel his 'son,' brings the Israelites through the baptismal waters of judgment, and promises to give them an inheritance, and they long for the fleshpots of Egypt (Exodus 16:1-3). They'd rather be slaves than sons, because at least they could trust the slave driver to give them what they needed.
"The pull toward slave nostalgia is a real danger for all of us. Satan once held all of us in 'lifelong slavery' through our 'fear of death' (Hebrews 2:15). The temptation for all of us is to shrink back to the petty protectors we once hid behind, to be slaves again to placate the Grim Reaper. That's why Paul could thunder to the Galatians, 'Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. but now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?' (Galatians 4:8-9). Perhaps the most striking aspect of this rebuke is the apostle's insistence that the believers want to be slaves again. Why? They're afraid."
True comfort is given to us in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. We have been deceived into believing the things of this world (i.e. money, homes, friends, jobs, food, family, etc.) are comforting. The things do not bring real comfort; they only give us what we know and have judged as good.
Following God's ways can look weird and crazy at times. But that is why He left us the Holy Spirit. So that in the physical discomfort (by the world's standards), we could be filled with comfort through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Great Comforter. "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you; and shall be in you." (John 14:16-17 KJV)
Despite our circumstances and tangible evidence, He promises, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." (John 14:18 KJV) We are comforted by the residence of the Holy Spirit within us not by a physical resemblance of what the world has judged as comfortable. The NLT puts it this way, "No, I will not abandon you as orphans - I will come to You." (John 14:18)
Remember it is fear of losing tangible comforts that keeps us from knowing the True Comforter. We are orphans without the Holy Spirit, longing for the days in the orphanage because that's all we know. But Paul reminds us in Romans, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (8:15 KJV) This "Spirit of adoption" is described in the Greek as "the nature and condition of the true disciples in Christ, who by receiving the Spirit of God into their souls become sons of God."
But, our earthly realm doesn't match. We suffer death, lose, heartache, hardship and so we cry with arms out stretched like a toddler, "Abba, Father!" because our souls desire "the blessed state looked for in the future life after the return of Christ from heaven."
Where is our comfort found? Is it in the ease of life's daily grind succumbing to the bondage of fear to avoid pain, unpleasantness or embarrassment? Or, are we living so full of the Spirit that we are comforted regardless of exterior circumstances because "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are [no longer orphans bound by fear, but instead] children of God." ? (Romans 8:16 KJV)
This is the message we have to share that is different than anything the world can offer, "God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NLT)
