On September 10th, 2001, it was a Monday night. I was at Campus Rock, the campus ministry I used to attend. There was a scripture verse, in Hebrews 12, about receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken. We watched a video clip, about a kid who was in a building that was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, and he had walked away without a scratch.
They cut to the day before the earthquake, and he had been reading a bible. The narrator said something like “No longer move to the motion of the world,” and he spun around slow motion Matrix-style, as pieces of the building flew past and around him. Authorities were interviewing the kid, and earthquakes like it were happening all over the place. They wanted to know how he survived.
The next day was September 11th, 2001, the day the World Trade Center was attacked.
Recently, I’ve been running away on my own. I haven’t been “gushing” Jesus at people I meet. I haven’t been forgiving. I haven’t been loving. I haven’t been “innocent as doves, but shrewd as snakes.” I’ve been mostly the snake part.
There is a hidden glory in the man God wants me to be. That man is the one who relied fully on God, who let himself be weak so that God could be strong in Him. I have missed that man for a while now. Satan keeps prodding “You’re not the same guy you were, Dave. You couldn’t have kept up that whole Spiritual thing forever, could ya?”
And the more I thought I was just taking a break from ministry to seek God, the more I realized I was just taking a break from accepting any responsibility for myself. My heart and mind haven’t been His.
Praise God for every “But then God,” in the bible, and in my life. The best thing I ever did in my life was to accept God’s forgiveness for my craptastic run at life, and ask Him to takeover the controls. I believe that ever since the day I did that, there is no running away. Believe me, I’ve tried. He will move Heaven and Earth to get to me. He loves me with all that He is, and will never ever let go.
I could keep on the way I’ve been lately, but it’s not in me. I am not who I used to be, because the Lord is good to me. I am in this world, not of it. The last day of tolerance has gone. Hell – run for the hills: this man is loosed.