Wednesday, April 4, 2012
The Gaze Of A Soul
I haven't written much in this quiet spot lately. Truth be told, there are so many times when I'm just not even sure what to scratch out. So many times, everything in this heart of mine just feels like one gigantic mess of things and I don't even know where to turn my feet in order to take even the smallest step towards Him.
I read a little Tozer in the bathtub tonight.
"The man who has struggled to purify himself and has nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. When he looks at Christ, the very things that he has been trying to do will be getting done within him.It will be God working in him to will and to do."
Oddly, something within me actually does know this. I know this, and understand this with such weak human eyes. I see, but my vision is so incredibly blurred, it's almost as if I really don't see at all.
Oh, I can talk about God with anyone and everyone, sure.
But what's really happening over here in this heart of mine is a lack of faith.
That Tozer, he defines faith with such practicality that I just want to kiss the man and thank him for bringing a clear understanding to a girl who often over analyzes and ends up truly understanding very little...
"Faith, is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God."
Well of course it is. Why didn't I think of that?
I'm not sure why, but that definition makes so much sense to me, and I'm so thankful for it.
I've been reading through Matthew this Easter season and came upon so many scriptures that I've read so many times, so many scriptures that after nearly twenty years of being in a love relationship with my Savior still make very little practical sense to me.
You know that scripture about the mustard seed. The one where Jesus is telling his disciples that if they just had a faith as small as a mustard seed that they could say to this mountain, get up and walk and it would? (I'm paraphrasing here. :)
What does that even mean?
I'm praying for a little girl that I love right now. Praying for healing. I believe that God can heal her, but He's not. I have faith. God can heal. He IS able. So where am I going wrong?
Lately I have been so easily irritated with my treasures. My words are short and far from kind. I am not exemplifying Christ and I am often times not choosing to love like I know He loves.
I've prayed. I've begged. I have faith that God can change that yucky quality in me, the one that quite frankly has been tearing up my insides for weeks now. But everyday the battle is still there, and I'm on the losing side. Why does He not change me? Is it my lack of faith?
"Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God"...
Maybe my struggle is a complete misunderstanding of faith?
Maybe not much is changing because I'm so obsessed with self?
Maybe it's that my gaze is on me, (a heart so consumed with my own inefficiencies) and NOT upon a saving God?
Maybe I'm forgetting that even the simplicity of my days under this farmhouse roof are really sacred days. He doesn't just show up on Christmas and Easter. Time and place do not matter when it comes to the choosing of faith.
"Lift your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. :) You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him."
That lesson of CHOICE keeps coming up in my life. I need to chose joy in my circumstance thus this whole year has been named, Acceptance With Joy. It is the same for me with faith. It is a choice to form a new habit, a habit that will bring lasting change and allow me to see with a new set of eyes. It will become an inward habit of daily, hourly, beholding God.
"When the habit of inwardly gazing Godward becomes fixed within us, we shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with the promises of God and the mood of the New Testament. The Triune God will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of simple duty here among men."
There is no formula to motherhood, to being a daughter or a wife or a friend. So the learning is always a shifting of heart and sight.
Lord, increase my faith.
Allow my soul to gaze upon You, my saving God.
And as I look towards You and away from myself, may my messy-beautiful life display Your splendor.
Resources: The Pursuit Of God by AW Tozer