Part 2
5. Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God’s gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.
6. He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up His treasures to be free?
Wow what a dreary picture. Can this really be what we look like to those in heavenly places. Can it be that as we drive down the road and see the homeless, thread bare and starving, holding up their cardboard signs begging for meager handouts to quench the ache in their empty bellies, that we are the same as them when not connected to the One who walks with us, ready the instant we realize He is there with open arms. We spend so much energy pursuing something out there to quench our thirst not knowing the One who walks with us wants to turn on the tap and from out of our bellies will flow rivers of living water. “Will work for food!” the only work necessary is stop, realize we are not alone. Look up. The bread of life is yours.
7. This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception and set free.
8. You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?
There is Only One thing God does: GIVE. God has only One desire for his children: HAPPINESS and as been pointed out everything we need for our happiness has already been given. The world we made in our nightmare only exists in our sleep. Christ wants to wake us up and end our suffering, He gently shakes our sleeping shoulder but we turn over and beg to sleep another lifetime.
9 Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. Christ’s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity. Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own. Perhaps His gifts to you are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.
But no matter how much we wish to continue the dream we now cannot forget the gentle touch of Christ upon our shoulder, the warmth and the love felt for an instant is now growing in us like yeast in the dough. It is spreading throughout your being and you know it is time to get up for a new brighter day. We are no longer in deep oblivion we are awake.
The Justice of Gods touch is this: “not guilty neither do I condemn you don’t go back to sleep.”
Continued in part 3.
God is Good 