So many things I once had a passion for have turned to ash and been carried off by the wind. I have often wondered why this must be. Why must the pinnacle joys of my life turn out to be mere fixes in one great existential addiction? Such realization leave me...well...depressed. It's as if the carpet has been pulled from beneath my feet. Having no foundations, the towers of my life crumble and fall.
Through the mire of self-pity and pain I am beginning to see the beautifully simple answer to my question--an answer that I have been shown again and again. The answer is this: Any passion that I can hold other than and apart from Christ is a passion of utter distaste to Him who must be the sole source of my identity as a Christian, as a human being. You see, when everything in life loses it's flavor, one has but to see the Value of Christ as it truly is...infinite. Only then can true joy be experienced. Only then can one truly find existence.
Coming to this conclusion is worth a far deeper and longer depression than I have had to bear, and I pray that God would make miserable any course in my life taken apart from Him. "Spare the rod, spoil the child." In this case, if He did spare the rod, I would certainly prove to be no child.
ps
ReplyDeletei forgot to say that i highly recommend psycho-pharmaceuticals ....... along with prayer.
well, my dear friend...
ReplyDeletewhat you are experiencing now is truly saddening, no doubt--but otherwise, pretty routine around times of change. and you have had such immense amounts of change in the past 6 mos-year. things that we once enjoyed, dwelt upon, even obsessed about, all pass in their time. and some of these things may have been distracting from seeing God in His beauteous light.
but times of change--turning a new leaf, if you will--force us to reflect on what we have done, who we have been, so far. i suppose its nature's way of "cleaning house". since we have the desire to focus upon Xst, these times help us to re-adjust our lenses to a clearer and holier view of God; hence, some of the passions we depended so much upon for our identity slowly...disappear.
i remember a similar time of sadness and reflection some years ago; i dwelt on the objects of my affections that i did not want to give up. but sovereign circumstances took those things from my grasp, and with time i looked back and realized just what a hindrance they were to my seeing the LORD in His glorious Truth. and i would not take back those "passions" for the world--in fact, i would be insulted if they were offered back to me; i have found more passion in Xst.
so those periods of my life when i look back on what was "lost", i find i have more assurance in Xst when i trust that they were mere...distractions from Him. almost like the back of the head of the tall member of a crowd that blocks your view from the scene you want to witness: it is irksome to you that the head is in that spot, and eventually (if you must) you will move to a place closer to the coveted sight. In the same way, these passions become annoyances, for they prevent us from seeing God--then you want to give them up.
God gives us temporary passions to teach us just how much greater He is than all of it. but, not all these temporary passions are bad--some of them even focus us in our purpose and method of bringing Him glory. and as our lives unfold, we wait--we wait for He who loves us to show us the next passion to adopt, knowing its from Him. and hopefully He watches us now grow under His Grace, and He delights when we find Him in the tiny amounts of joy He has given us here to discover and marvel at His Good.