THE JOURNEY TOWARDS GOD
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a wa y that hurt abominally and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be a nice little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis; "Mere Christianity".
We are being replaced. On the trip towards intimacy with our Creator, the self that we have known our whole lives (the selfish, petty, sin-filled self) must be done away with. God's aim is to give us a whole new life. To do this, we must let go of our old selves. While this is easy to say, it is, in fact, the hardest thing in the world to do. It takes a lifetime. Slowly, we must let God knock down everything dear to our world-focused bodies, and embrace the fresh gifts that He has for us. It is not an easy process, and sometimes it can cause us great pain, but God's desire is to live in us. That is what the Journey toward God is all about; He wants to make His home in his children. He wants to be intimate with them. God wants to be one with us.
Can you relate to Lewis' house metaphor? Have you ever experienced the pain and difficulty of being reformed by God? Have you experienced evidence of becoming a palace? What is the next piece of your old self that you need to let God re-work and replace?
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a wa y that hurt abominally and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be a nice little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis; "Mere Christianity".
We are being replaced. On the trip towards intimacy with our Creator, the self that we have known our whole lives (the selfish, petty, sin-filled self) must be done away with. God's aim is to give us a whole new life. To do this, we must let go of our old selves. While this is easy to say, it is, in fact, the hardest thing in the world to do. It takes a lifetime. Slowly, we must let God knock down everything dear to our world-focused bodies, and embrace the fresh gifts that He has for us. It is not an easy process, and sometimes it can cause us great pain, but God's desire is to live in us. That is what the Journey toward God is all about; He wants to make His home in his children. He wants to be intimate with them. God wants to be one with us.
Can you relate to Lewis' house metaphor? Have you ever experienced the pain and difficulty of being reformed by God? Have you experienced evidence of becoming a palace? What is the next piece of your old self that you need to let God re-work and replace?
posted by Journey Church at 11:09 a.m.
3 Comments:
Nice. I'm glad you cats are doing one of these.
John
The idea that God at work in my life might be painful is a hard one for me to accept because it raises (for me, at least) a slippery slope of troublesome questions about the ways God works - or does not work - in the world.
Yet, putting those questions aside for a moment...I can't deny the truth I see in C.S. Lewis' words, in my life experience, and in scripture itself. God disciplines those He loves, the writer of Hebrews tells us. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like, but I do know this. If I always got what I asked for out of life (which, when it comes right down to it, is usually a life without any kind of stress or problems), I'd be an absolute mess. I'm convinced of it.
The troublesome questions remain, but I wonder how much more of God's hand He wants me to see in my painful struggles? I wonder how much more I could grow if I learned to recognize when God is stretching and shaping me and responded accordingly...rather than always assuming that God's priority for my life is to move me through the rough patches to higher ground ASAP?
For what it's worth,
Malcolm
I have felt this often in the past couple of years, even before I put my trust in God. I look back on that now and know that the things that happened, no matter how painful, were necessary to empty me enough to be receptive and trusting of Him. Does that make any sense? I'm looking forward to attending Journey, I'll see you there!!
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