Oh, that I would let God deal with me rather than insisting that I do it all myself! Protecting myself from the Savior feels so right, so comfortable, I miss the noose, the rope so strong, yet so dastardly. What do I want? How could I want more than Him? I clearly do not know what is best for me when I let Him show me what it is that I have been so willing to avoid.
All avoiding of His methods is avoiding of Him. Where do I have to run if I am not going to Him? I want to find some kind of relief from the kind of exposure of internal sin and shame He brings, discrediting the very real release only He can execute.
With the death of sin and the flesh do I really die, or is it merely a longer process, a less pleasurable escape from death than I thought was reasonable to expect? The very limitations I ask God to remove from me, do not fall away with earnest prayer and right action, I get to know HARD. Hard, where only Christ will do to see into the future with HOPE.
When I realize how little progress I make on my own, Christ and His liberating love become my crucial need. A necessary part of my religious way of life do not accrue with the real purpose of His presence in my life: profound and un-abating NEED.
I can make no headway without Him, I can find no real satisfaction in myself. I need Him for Who He is, especially in light of who I truly am. I do not want to live with what only I am or supply.
I need a depth of realism that I am to crippled to provide. What is real about me is not holy, what is perceived about me is not enough.
Do I think that unvarnished pain are too raw an offering to God? Do I truly want God to teach me to long for what is good (being the absolute best that He has created for me), even if He should choose to allow me to feel the absence of the same instead of immediately knowing gratification on its account?
Is it okay if I should be emptied, slowly and painfully prepared for Him to fill me? Or will I be content with all the alternatives I can more easily get my hands on, even when they do not get to the bottom of my need?
I didn’t tell you this earlier because I was with you every day. But now I am on the way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, “Where are you going?” Instead, the longer I’ve talked, the sadder you’ve become. Let me say it again, this truth: It is better for you that I leave. If I don’t leave, the Friend won’t come. But, if I go, I’ll send him to you.
When he comes, he’ll expose the error of the godless world’s view of sin, righteousness and judgment: He’ll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this world is brought to trial and convicted.
I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, “He takes from me and delivers to you.”
In a day or so you’re not going to see me, but then in another day or so, you will see me.
– John 16:4-16
At Home with God 