Toilet Water

For the waywardness of the naive will kill them. And the complacency of fools will destroy them^. But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil.

Proverbs 1:32-33

  

I forget the same lessons I have learned over and over again.
Let me give you an example; a cheeseburger and french fries.
I'm really big on the "idea" of things but not so much the outcome. Haven't you found that the idea of eating a juicy cheeseburger with crispy (on the outside, mushy on the inside, of course) french fries with a cold soda is appealing. However, once it's floating through your system, leaving your system, and attaching it's unwanted components to your under arms and belly, you realize it wasn't actually that great of an idea.
How many times am I going to give myself a stomach ache at Five Guys?

This goes for lots of things. And the Kingdom of God is no exception.
What is it about us that compels every molecule in our being towards sin?
The outcomes are much more than belly aches.
They are heart wrenching, soul eating, life killing. And they separate us from the only good, perfect, holy,  and peace-giving Man that has ever lived.

Gary Thomas in "Thirsting For God" put it this way,
"When we sin as it really is-offensive to God who created and saved us, and a personal slow suicide-the moral calling of Christianity takes on a whole new light".
 William Law said, "Surely it can be no uncomfortable state of life to be rescued by religion from such self-murder and to be rendered capable of eternal happiness".

Slow suicide? Self-murder?
Why do we run towards this?
It's not as if He's asking you to trade good things you have found on your own for some rotting, terrible things He has for you.
He wants to give you GOOD.
The word says, NO good thing does He withhold from He whose walk is blameless.
No. good. thing.

I used to always use a particular analogy when I was a part of this Christian college group during undergrad. It was about different types of water.
I constantly shared how I felt like I always ended up

drinking toilet water instead of living water that Jesus was giving me....

And four years later, I'm doing the same thing.
Going around some of the same mountains.
Forgetting the same, hard-learned lessons.

Can anyone relate to this?
Our constant, ravenous, sin thirsting nature.
It's enough to make me want to scream.

And that's just where I am at right now.
Ready to scream.
But there is a thirst that is stronger and more compelling than anything sin promises us.
The thirst for peace, for relationship with the God of the universe, the desire to have purpose, to belong, to be loved, and to have wisdom.
And it will come when we get sick enough of the belly ache.

And can I be perfectly honest? (thanks) I know, in part, what this is all about.
I feel a pull of God, and have for a long time, into leadership.
Into the things He whispered to me a long time ago.
The seeds He planted deep within my heart.
Those same seeds have sprouted into very deep desires.

But frankly, I'm not ready. He keeps showing me that until I can stand up to these giants (which really means abiding in Him and leaning on His strength), I will always fall.
And God has got to make sure I can stand. Because when He puts me in the places He has planned for me to stand, I can't be falling and squirming at every desirable or delicious scent placed before me.
I have to be disciplined.
Alert.

1 Peter 5:8 instructs and warns us of this very thing.

"Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. "

How can I lead people to His feet, truth, and power if I am being devoured myself.
I can't.
And so, we go around the same mountains, as many times as it takes, until I learn.

And I can't rush it. And I certainly can't fake it.

But I can rest in the fact that He will have His perfect way in me

Philippians 1:6 "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus"

I will, at some point, stop kicking and screaming and grabbing at every perverted version of the good things that Jesus Christ heaved, bled, and gasped His last breath on the cross for me to have.

Here is the reality, Megan (and every other stubborn, stiff necked child of God)...
I will never be happy if I am not staring into the blazing eyes of Jesus instead of sipping the stagnant toilet bowl water.
I have training to undergo.
Lessons to learn.
About grace, about pride, about lust, about patience.
And I need every single one of those fruits of the Spirit if I am to stand in the storms and waves that come with being a leader in the Kingdom.

Jesus, bring on the living water and wash me clean.
Restore what has always been rightfully Yours.
Teach me how to walk, how to sing, how to fight.

So, let's go back to the last place we remember seeing the fiery eyes of Jesus.
And let's look into them until all the other things fade out.
No matter how much it asks of us.
Or what we have to "give up".
Or how uncomfortable it makes us.

I cannot go on another day in these dry bones.

 Here's to the right kind of water,

mp