09/13/2024
It's human nature to hide from pain and illness. They remind us of our frailty and ultimately our mortality. Becoming aware of serious health conditions can be annoying at best, requiring a change of lifestyle, and downright frightening at worst. Sometimes we prefer to live in blissful ignorance. But awareness can also offer hope, health, and a new life we might never have embraced.
Sin is the ultimate sickness. Consciously or unintentionally we choose to live in ways that strengthen our ego, give us the greatest amount of control, and allow us to live as comfortably as possible. Often we aren't aware of the blinders that guide those decisions. And the normalcy of sitting on the throne of our own lives makes it difficult to even ask the question about God's role in it all. So sin subtly and seductively places obstacles between us and the Light of Life. It lies, seeming to offer pleasure, privilege, or freedom, when the ultimate reality is that it creates world of shadows that keep us stumbling and perpetuating a condition of sin-sickness in this world.
Living in the Light challenges our intentions as well as our actions. It's not always comfortable... in fact daily carrying a cross can be downright difficult. Living with humility, having a heart open to allowing Jesus to step out of the box we've placed Him in and actually make us aware of the complex nature of love, is hard. And yet the rewards are eternal. Relationships become deeper and more authentic. Integrity, the alignment of our body, heart, mind, and soul, becomes stronger. Self-knowledge grows as our awareness of Jesus in our lives increases. The WAY becomes more than a set of rules to follow and more of a way of being and interacting with God and others. Jesus was onto something when he challenged us to love God with all that is in us and to love neighbors as ourselves. Living in the light offers freedom from fear, even as it calls us to repent and walk a different path. It allows us to speak and hear truth in love. And we need alot more of that in the world today...
Do you love yourself the way God loves you? Can you even begin to see how wonderfully made you are and how precious you are to Him? Do any choices you make keep you firmly on a throne that only God was meant to sit upon? And where might God be whispering in your heart to be open to seeing the Light through a slightly different refractory lens?
