I’ve been reading Genesis lately (in the Bible, just in case there is a question), up to the 24 chapter right now. Reading of the beginnings of God’s work and eventual covenant with his creation, (I don’t know what word to use) I’m struck/encourged/??? by how the simple lives of people like Noah and Abraham where taken up, changed, moved forward into becoming the agents of dramatic events. Simple men and women who for the history and destiny of peoples changed the course of events, the course of history. Neither of them where in the beginning considered great men, yet God took them and made them into their destiny, their potential, the true selves.
I think that within each of use, God imprinted the ideal person for ourselves to become. With that ideal, we find our fullest potential, our fullest sense of wellbeing, accomplishment, peace, purpose, joy, satisfaction, and in the end the ability to look back and not regret. In the person inside that God has created us to be, we have life to the full – mature, complete, and lacking nothing. I’m not saying that we are pre-ordained or pre-destined to be or do anything, necessarily. I’m just saying that without the influences of a corrupt world, that ideal person inside is who we would becoming. We would reach our true, complete selves (and that isn’t being self-actualized – well, maybe it is but in a different context). Yet, we live in a world that does its best to corrupt our true selves – everything to corrupt God’s imprint and cause us to move further and further away from God’s intent. We become less-then our true selves, less-then what we could become – half-lives, sad lives, unfulfilled lives, un-accomplished lives with a sense of missing… something. In the end, we cannot look back on life and be satisfied and proud.
The idea of Christ coming to begin reconciling the world with God, the idea of taking each of us and beginning the process of change so that we will come to understand and then recognize the true self that God created within us – to recognize the self buried deep and covered over by a myriad of layers of masks, layers of protection and self-preservation, layers of lies and distortions born of fear and insecurity and abuse, layers of misunderstandings that cause us to see ourselves as far less then we honestly are – becomes so foreign to us that we push it away, deny it, reject it, or replace it with notions of self-help and self-speak. The idea is to be continually renewed as we are made into the image of Christ – a lifelong process that at times is horrendous and at times ecstatic, but all the time worth it!
This is the process that so many live without. There is so much searching and seeking to fill that void that seems so real and so present during many times of our lives. We try to fill it with religion, with work, with love, with sex, with drink, with renown, with fame, with power, with education, with money, with position, with altered states, with thrill and danger, with a mountain of things, yet we come out on the other side of the effort and the void is still there – it seems to be mocking us. “Fill me with more and more and more and you will be satisfied! Try harder to dull the pain and make me satisfied and you will be happy! Feed me, feed me, feed me…” After a time, it doesn’t work anymore. The drugs ware off. The money doesn’t bring the happiness and security was seek. The fame doesn’t make us feel better about ourselves. All the while, a still small voice, a voice that is not rude or abusive, is calling us to the process of reconciliation with God, of understanding and seeing our true selves that will once and for all fill the void and shut-up the shrill voice of the void that demands all our attention always. The process of being made into the image of Christ – our true selves, our fullness, our purpose, our joy – to live life to the full.
This life may not be what we expect (or even initially want), but it will be the life worth living, the life that is satisfied and proud in the end. I believe like Noah, like Abraham, like Sara, and so many others over the millennia, we cannot even begin to know what life awaits us. Each of us will accomplish great things – maybe in just one other life (a small girl that we help become the leader of many), maybe in a thousand lives (a discoverer of a cure), yet the accomplishment will change life for ourselves, for that one other, or perhaps for nations.
The processes is glorious – we become far more then we could imagine of ourselves and shed ourselves of the false sense of who and what we are. We rid ourselves of the fear and insecurity that kills us inside. We simply live life to the full. Will we begin the process? Will we allow God to begin the work inside of us? Can we muster the courage and determination? It begins with a yes – a simple yeilding to the still, small voice. “I want to be the person you created me to be. I want life to the full.” More then we could ever imagine…
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