Our Need Of Him

“I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one” (John 17:23a ESV).

At age fifteen, I started (serious) pretending. Standing by dad’s grave in 1966, I stored unbearable suffering within my subconscious. Donning a happy-face, so to speak, I adopted an adequate disguise. Or so I thought. Oddly, stoic behavior carried me through college, marriage, and children. Alas, hearts and minds hold a limited amount of pain before erupting like a volcano. Then, when you least expect it, outbursts avalanche and spew all over the place…leaving a host of wounded people in the wake.

All in all, masks work pretty well for daily survival but there’s a better way. Glory be, we’re getting to the good stuff. Specifically, our Father woos and chases until we feel our need of Him. By that I mean, opportunities are presented for our total surrender. Yielding our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies into the hands of the Healer (Exodus 15:26). It’s a great situation when you think about it. In that, we throw all our cares upon the only One who can bear them. Number one—He already knows our  brokenness. Number two, and this is most important, He’s already provided the cure (John 3:16).

Again, here’s another lovely deal—we trade our smoldering ashes for beauty, sorrowful mourning for joy, and garments of heaviness for the robe of praise (Isaiah 61:1). It’s that simple. Be transformed through His loving care, and lest we forget; we’re His delightful workmanship (Eph 2:10). No need to hide any longer behind fig leaves (like Adam and Eve) because He wants to clothe us with Lamb’s wool whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7).

In closing, I stress the fact that we are ‘in’ Him and the Godhead bodily resides ‘in’ us (Col 2:10). We are complete in Him, and if we don’t get this we’ll wobble through life, lost, and alone. Live free of your past. Live true to whose you are “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV).

“He became what we are, so that He might make us what He is” Athanasius of Alexandria 296-298.