Dec. 13th, 2005

My mind fills easily. While I would love to say that it is because I am so full of knowledge, wisdom, random facts about mid-90's rock bands, or popular culture, the truth of the matter is that my mind races with thoughts I can not seem to place. There is the rub, my head is always racing. The thing is, there are two types of races. There are races like the Tour De France, where one travels across great distances to go from one side of a country to another. There is a resolution in this type of race. A person begins at point A and travels across much terrain to get to point B. I believe that most people's minds work this way. They have a thought, opinion, ideal, belief, or view and after much study, life experience, or divine intervention they end up with a new or revised thought. However, there is another type of race. This is the Nascar (for the record, the dumbest sport in the history of mankind, and to call it a sport is being awfully liberal with the use of the word) type of race. You see, after spending what must have been an incredibly boring and depressing year in Portland, Maine, my dad began watching Nascar and I have vowed to make fun of him for it. Now, I am willing to admit there is something remotely exciting to the beginning and end of a race like this, but for the most part it loses interest for me faster than counting my own hairs. Anyways, my problem with the Nascar type race is the circles. A car travels 500 miles but never leaves the two square mile piece of land it started on. It travels around and around and around. It never turns right. It never comes to any sort of conclusion. The car begins and ends at the exact same spot. It is almost as if the driver is being rewarded for coming back to the same place the quickest. I fear that this is how my mind races.
I can not wrap my head around God's grace. I have tried. I have tried to understand it. I have tried to fully grasp it's application in my life. I can not. How does a God who is, in every respect, Holy, pursue after Me (Not Holy) to the point of sacrificing of himself? I believe it whole-heartedly. I trust in it's truth. However, I have still yet to understand it. This is the race. Round and Round. How? Why?
Meg is in New Orleans with a group from our church working to repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. In her absence, I have been reading a book that she recommended to me months ago, but which I am just not finally reading. It is a book by Donald Miller called "Blue Like Jazz." It is a personal memoir; an account of how someone comes to know God. The book stays away from Christianese phrasing and religious ritual, and instead focuses on the part that matters; A personal encounter with the living God.
The second chapter of this book hit me in a powerful way when I read it and it reminded me of my own journey. Donald talks about the reality that gripped him multiple times in his life, the idea that we were not right. The world around us is broken. We are broken. There is something broken inside of us. We can blame society, governments, parents, teachers, and preists for it, but the truth is that what is broken is our own, and everything else is just a vain attempt to fix it. As a person who was brought up in the church, I can give you the sunday school answer that this is all because of the fall of man. While this is entirely true, I think the larger issue is missed. The reality is that the best I am capable of is still some form of depravity. I am selfish. I am motivated in almost every situation by what works out best for me. Here is where God's grace blows my mind. God's Divinity, His Holiness, is so perfect that when I am covered by it, the worst of who I am and what I am capable of is drowned by God's Grace.
This is true. I claim it. I am forgiven and redeemed by the blood of Christ. However, the more I look, the more I can still see my depravity. I can still see brokeness. It rips my heart to pieces. I don't want to see these things. I don't want to feel the depth of the fall any longer. This pain eats at me. The I remember that I am not the only one who has felt this. In the Seventh Chapter of Paul's letter to the Roman's, he writes the following...

Rom 7:14 I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison.
Rom 7:15 What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.
Rom 7:16 So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.
Rom 7:17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!
Rom 7:18 I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it.
Rom 7:19 I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.
Rom 7:20 My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
Rom 7:21 It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.
Rom 7:22 I truly delight in God's commands,
Rom 7:23 but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
Rom 7:24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
Rom 7:25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Paul had these same feelings, and he found joy and rescue in the truth of God's promise. "The answer, Thank God, is that Jesus...acted to set things right in this life of contradictions."

Round and Round and Round.

My mind circles around God's Grace, never able to understand, and never ever to live outside of it. I am depravity, but my depravity will always lead me towards the Grace of God. So, what I do and try to do, is forever proof of who he is.

There is a phrase from the new David Crowder Band album that speaks to my confliction, to my contradiction.

"When our depravity meets His Divinity, it is a beautiful collision."

The concern is this. In Hebrews, we are told to mature to solid food. We are told to begin to eat the meat of God's Word and His Will. I yearn for these things, but my mind is captivated. My mind spins around and around. My mind is deperately trying to put it all together.

Round and How and Round and Why and Round and Surrender and Round and Worship and Round and "Holy, Holy, Holy."

Yearning,

Rob Stone