The lock slips into place with the ping you’ve been anticipating since the last time you were here.
Instinctively, your head falls back and your chest rises–doing all you can to obey the inward demand for oxygen.
The darkness settles on your shoulders, quieting the ache of being so long un-held.
Hushed and waiting, this atmosphere offers privacy in exchange for the secrets you’ve been keeping.
Fear, rejection, the-sense-that-no-one-hears-you are foreign here; you’re too busy meeting the One who’s welcoming the real you.
This started as a description of the moment we slip into seclusion, inviting sin to be our companion for uninhibited expressions of our deepest lusts.
As I typed and retyped, trying to figure out where this sketch was going, God tinkered with my perspective and loosened my hold on the ending.
I began to see that the point in time I was illustrating was not necessarily one that was “fixed” as an instance of compromise. Instead, our encounters with temptation are often preceded by an acute awareness of our deepest needs and the failed conquests we’ve made concerning them.
But it is not as if there are needs we hold inside that may only be fully addressed in the darkness, out of the way of interference from anyone. Our sense of need is, ultimately, designed to invigorate our pursuit of relationship, intimacy and increasing vulnerability.
When we accept an alternative to drawing toward another, we dismiss the very object of our need. It’s true, our fellow men and women often leave us adrift rather than welcoming us aboard the beautiful vessel Fellowship. This is painful, but is it not purposeful? Our hearts look about with renewed expectation–wanting nothing less than to meet the One Who is deeper than all of our needs.
At Home with God 