Part of the class I'm taking at the Titus 2 University is that we are reading A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. (I am listening to it on CD - I love to read, but sometimes I learn better if I can hear it.) In this book, Tozer compares us to the tabernacle of God and how the inner most part of our soul is reserved for God alone; just like the inner most part of the tabernacle was reserved for the high priest. Through sin and self, though, we try to fill this spot which is meant for God alone. This brought a memory to mind of a dear friend and former pastor's wife at our church who taught a class on sin once and the way she explained it one time just blew me away. She said imagine you can see God-clear as day. Every tine you sin you put a veil up between you and God that distort your view of Him. The more you sin, the thicker the veils are going to become and the harder it is going to be to see God. Tozer more or less said that we fill our inner spot with so much stuff that's there no room left for God. This is so easy to do. I don't want to push God out of tbe way, it just sort of happens. I get so busy with Barrett, the kids and everything else that before I know it I have a stack of veils before my eyes so thick that I can not see God.
Now, I know God is always with me. While this brings me great comfort, I fear that sometimes I become too nonchalant about God and don't give Him the honor, praise and respect that He deserves. It's almost as if I just expect Him to always be here for me, instead of being grateful that He's always with me. It's when I let other stuff enter inner most spot, the spot that's reserved for God alone, that I feel cluttered and feel as if God is a "friend" and not the awesome, holy God He is.
I don't want to think of God as mealy a friend.
I want my inner most spot to be for God alone. But, I must admit, too often I want to have others enter into that inner most space, especially Barrett and Becki, my BFF. Probably because these are the two people that I am closest to on earth. (I'm not excluding my kids - I am close to them. At times they do want me to be their "friend" and I can well remember so desperately wanting my mama to be me best friend, but that wasn't her job and it's not my job to be my kids "best friend", its my job to be their mama. It not only helps me -but they need someone besides mama to go to.)
Anyway, I digress. My point is I do want to invite certain people into that "inner spot" that's meant for God alone. Why??? I'm sure that on any given day I'd have several different replies to answer this question. However, today (and probably most days) the outstanding answer is "fear". It's not that I'm afraid of God - although I do believe I have a healthy reverent respect for God. But when you have to block everything out and focus on your relationship with God; it does get scary. You have to stop and really realize what's important in life. Most of us aren't mature enough most of the time to face this time alone with God. So, we do whatever we can to avoid it. So we (I) try to fill that inner space with other things or people. Thinking maybe if I do I can either drown out God or that He will not rebuke me in front of others. (UHM, I wonder if God's politically correct or overly concerned about what others think???)
So I definitely need to work on putting God first!
This goes right along the lines I was thinking about last night. I was reading in Luke, and the thing that struck me was the need for humility. Not the kind that puts yourself down, but the kind that puts others up. Then, I realized that Jesus put Himself further down than any of us can attain to through His death on the cross, and we have to try to lower ourselves, rather than "build up our self-esteem" as the world teaches. Thank you so much for this post! You've helped me understand better how to do this!
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