The Signs we Look at

What are the signs you are looking at? I was thinking earlier today and started to think about what it is that pushes us towards or away from God. I’m reading C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” (good read), and in it he is basically breaking down what it is to ‘be a Christian’, or in other terms ‘defining Christianity’. I started to think about what it means to be a Christian. He mentions that we are to ‘love God’ yet we can not find such feelings in ourselves (which I don’t fully agree with, but I will get to a point using that statement somewhere), he also was saying how we are able to ‘love’ God in the same sense that we love another person. He is speaking about how to ‘love one another’, including our enemies, and says that we can not ‘conjure’ up feelings of love, for love in this sense is not a feeling, but an act, and in that sense we are able to ‘love’ God. He brings to the table this question, (and also to think on it) ‘“If I were sure I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go do it.” This is what got me thinking, what is it that I am doing and how is it getting me closer or further from ‘loving’ God.

It is a fact, whether you believe it or not, and I am not here to argue this point, that God loves you no matter what you do. Sin, prejudice, distance, past, future, murder, blood, sacrifice, pride and anger will NOT change God’s love for you. Some might think, “Well why not, dude, if my friend hits me in the face, my feelings are going to change about him…”, to you I say, “aren’t we all glad that you are not God.”

So, we are left with, “If I were sure I loved God, what would I do?” and then we are supposed to do it? What does love mean? I must ask your forgiveness for last year I stated I was going to go on a journey of Love and hopefully find a definition of what Love is, but alas that fell short and I am left still wondering, a year later, what Love actually is (in it’s fullness).

The two questions I hope to bring something to the table on are what I just stated, as well as what I earlier wrote “what is pushing me closer, or pulling me further, from God?” This is where I bring in the title, “signs”. Everything that is put in front of us carries a sign about where it will direct us (and I can be wrong, so tell me if I am), and my question is what signs are we looking at. My brain is a little scrambled with thoughts, so this might come out a little odd. I think most things have 2 signs, one that points up (ultimately), and one that points down (also ultimately). I look at food, it points to good health, good nutrition and bodily prosperity (one could say my body has prospered greatly, but we will not go there for now :P…); whereas food can also point to gluttony, un-self-control, selfishness etc… So, which sign are we looking at when we sit down to eat? I use food as the first example because it’s an easier thing to understand. Let’s jump in a little deeper. You see a girl you like (or if you are a girl, a boy you like) and there are going to be two signs, one that points to a God centred, unity of one-ness, or a sinking whole of lust and perversion of the very things good in a relationship. The signs might not be so subtle either. It’s not always ‘extremes’ yet, remember that I said these signs will direct you ultimately ‘up’ or ‘down’.
A relationship may start well, because you are in love, and love is good, relationships are good, a man and a woman becoming friends and caring for each other and growing in that friendship / relationship are all good, but suddenly you find that your ‘relationship’ with this friend has taken away from your time with God, or you’re need to get alone and ponder, reflect and pursue your dreams, and thus you have slipped away from the other sign that says, “in a relationship you become one, therefore putting the effort of 2 people into their respective and ‘together’ relationship with God, as well as having a best friend that will hear your heart, share your visions and dreams, someone for you to grow with and learn with, someone to help you, lead you and follow you, someone to be there for you and be a sign themselves to point you to God. Here I am speaking in a marriage situation and we aren’t starting there, but for my point I will jump ahead, because the end result of a relationship is marriage, unless you are just wasting time with someone that is not your spouse (another blog perhaps, but with my limited relational expertise I will leave that one alone, so don’t leave angry comments about that).

Let’s take it a bit further and talk spiritual. Is worship pointing you towards God, or is it just a song, that is slowly deadening your ability to enter into the presence of God through song and expression? Is the preaching you are hearing pointing you towards God, or pointing you inwards and causing you to focus on yourself more, leading you away from the presence of God? I am not asking these questions, because it is good to take a moment and step back and ask these very questions of ourselves once and a while. We must keep ourselves in check, as we must also have people around us that do so. If we are not growing, what are we doing?

Let’s go back, although I truly believe this is going even deeper into the subject of what signs we are looking at. How many of us really think about what we are going to do? And by that, I mean EVERYTHING we do. You can say when you wake up you go downstairs and have a coffee and get ready for work and leave for work, and there were no signs there at all.

Is coffee good for you? (I won’t give up coffee anytime soon, so I’m not saying find out it’s bad and let me know, because I don’t want to know for now… haha..wow, just killed my own thoughts…) Will you have to much sugar in your coffee, to much cream, are you reading the sign that points away from health (up) and brings your body into just a tiny (albeit seemingly insignificant) bit more ruin?

What time did your alarm go off? Are you meant to get up and pray, get up and read, get up and praise, or are you looking at the sign of ‘just a little more slumber, just a little more sleep’?

Did you see your wife and give her a kiss and tell her that you are madly in love with her? Did you read the sign of building that relationship, or did you let something slide and is that a point for good or a point for bad?

C.S. Lewis states, “An apparently trivial indulgence of lust or anger to-day is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible?” (Mere Christianity)

This is why I say everything matters, everything is a sign that points up or down. You could also say everything is a step on a road, and it is which fork in the road that you choose that makes the difference.

I haven’t written this because I have all the facts, I have written this to verbally process what is going on in my head right now. I am thinking about all the things that I do in a day that amount to nothing, I am thinking about the pack of cigarettes sitting on my counter just a food and a half away, I am thinking about the worship service earlier that I ‘had a hard time engaging in’. Does all of this mean that we must micro-analyze everything we do? I believe not. What I think it means is that we must pay attention to what we are doing and why we are doing it until we no longer need to worry about how to do something. When I was learning how to play bass guitar, I had to look at every note I played, and could hardly keep it together. It was challenging, it was frustrating at some times, and I didn’t always want to keep playing that instrument. Now 16 years later (yes I’m being honest, I have been playing for 16 years) it takes only a fraction of the mental and physical concentration it took for me to play when I started. I can now not look at the notes I am playing (albeit I will make mistakes sometimes, ask my friends) I can now sing when I am playing (not to shabby an accomplishment for bass players) and I can run lines I would not have dreamed possible 16 years ago, with hardly needing to think about it. I can also go to some people I know and sit in absolute amazement as I watch them play bass because it blows my mind how good and developed they are. It is incredible. What I am saying in all of this is simply that as we are able to continue at living right, continue at doing the right thing, we think less and less about what we are supposed to do. The danger in this is that we are equally able to do the same thing with sin, and the things that draw us away from God and our relationship with Him. I’m sure at some point you have noticed that you are ‘doing well’ and then something goes wrong, or you do something wrong, for whatever reason you end up sinning or stopping something good you were doing, and then a second day you slip and eventually you forget how good you were doing in the first place, but you also don’t even realize how you’ve continued to do wrong, or continue to walk away from God. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this in your life, but I definitely have noticed this in mine. It’s happened many a time with cigarettes, it happens when I hit about beer 10 in a night, I forget that I’m not supposed to drink that much, yet, I start not to care how much I drink.
On the upside, I haven’t had a smoke since yesterday morning (I started writing this yesterday morning, by the time I was finished writing till about half fway through the last paragraph, I went for a cigarette, and realized it was time to try again, to put my best foot forward, so while I still had that resolve and power inside of me, that strength that is not my own, that I felt empowered by, I went straight to my room and ripped apart a good dozen smokes and left them in the trash. Doing well at this life and at our continued pursuit of relationship with our God and finding His heart for us and our destiny, does not mean we will never fail, what it means to ‘do well’ is to get your ass off the ground and get back on the horse. Sometimes, admittedly we stay on the ground for quite some time before we realize we are supposed to get back up. Thankfully, if we are willing, God will continue to pursue us, continue to nudge at our hearts, remind us to get back up, remind us that He is there with us to help us along.

If there can be one encouragement about ‘doing the right thing’ in life, it is that God is there to help us do right, not condemn us when we do wrong. And he is just as close, if not closer when we do wrong, because He is there to pick us back up, to wash us clean and help us back up onto the horse to continue riding into what it is we are meant to be living in.

Try doing the right thing and see how it makes you feel, I guarantee you will feel something you like, more than what accompanies sin. I was amazed at how fee, comforted and more alive I felt simply by throwing a pack of cigarettes out, yet, last night, I was fighting the need/want for a smoke because in the moment, a smoke is so ‘physically’ gratifying (for me, all you kids out there that hate the taste, be thankful, it’s one less thing you need fight). But the sinking feeling in my heart of breaking the personal rules that God gave me, every time I have a cigarette is so much worse than the ‘physical’ torment of getting through not having a cigarette.
I don’t know what it fully means to seek comfort in God when we are going through a hard time. This I am still learning. I had a hard night last night, and suddenly I wanted to waste away, give up, go get drunk and buy a pack of smokes, there is a way to get out of that and get into the redeeming, helping, comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, there is also just going to bed (which is what I did, after watching a bit of a movie). In retrospect I should have spent some time letting the Holy Spirit comfort and reassure me, He does it so well, but I fought (by not giving in) to get through a night full of temptation, incredibly easy access (I am on a cruise boat…booze, smokes and time wasting is everywhere) and came out on the other end having fought a good fight.

Thinking about this I am seeing some incredibly hurtful and good things in there. The resolve to fight is something we need, we are in a war and we need to fight for our lives, for our friends and our family, for those around us, and for this dying world. On the other Hand we must not try to do this in our own strength. I did last night, and I made it through the night, but I must be honest with you when I say that if I needed to fight that way 2 or 3 nights in a row, I would fail, I know that. We must, in these moments turn to God. There is a part of us that must fight for what we know, but when we fight, we must cry out to God for support, comfort and help. I didn’t do that. Did I get through the night? Yes. Do I feel incredibly different for fighting so hard? Not really, but I know I feel better than if I had given in, of that I am sure. How would I feel given I turned to God and asked His support and comfort?

Spiritual warfare is an interesting thing. The Bible says we do not war against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers that are not of this world. Yet, last night those ‘principalities and powers’ were using very physical things of this world to try and get my spirit to a place of decay and destruction. Like I said earlier, one little moment of lust or anger today, what does it open up for the enemy to do? I know I haven’t necessarily stayed on topic this time, but do I ever? Stick with me, I think we can get somewhere. The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he MUST flee”, but it also says, “call on me and I will answer” “I will rescue you” etc… etc… The Psalms are full of David crying out to God asking for comfort, and asking for Him to fight the battles for Him, yet when push came to shove he picked up a sword and hacked Goliath’s head off. So, don’t tell me we get to sit back and just ‘call on the name of the Lord, and we are saved’. I agree, if we call on the name of the Lord, we will be saved, but we might just have to listen when he says, “go pray” or “run away” or “pick up your sword and take that giants head off of his shoulders”. Are you willing to fight? Are you willing to not only rest in the presence and comfort of God, but stand up when need be and fight for your life, and the lives of people around you?

I fought last night, I should ALSO have asked for the comfort and support of my God and my Saviour, that would have been the ideal situation. The more we spend time with God, the more ready we are for battle when it comes. Remember Jesus, he spent 40 days fasting in a desert, and when the devil came to tempt him the bible does not say that angels came to minister to him, it says they came to minister to him AFTER he was done fasting. We must fight, it is in us to do, be ready for it. Train today, for the fight tomorrow. Spend your time in the word to prepare yourself with the necessary truths to ‘resist the devil’, spend time with the Holy Spirit so that you notice less sin around you, and it tempts you less. When I am in the presence of God, I am not thinking about cigarettes, or pornography or alcohol or any of the other sins I have struggled with over the years. But when I do not spend time in the presence of God, those things stick out much more than when I am soaking myself with God’s presence.

It is time for us to get the truths, and the truths lie within the pages of the bible, they lie in the mind of God in whom said the spirit would reveal the mysteries of Heaven to us, they lie in relationship with our God, revelation of our salvation through Jesus Christ, and our relationship with people on the same path, so we can share in revelations, and hold each other up. It is time for the Kingdom of Heaven to be unleashed on earth, and that only happens when those of us, that have been given the kingdom (and believe me YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE KINGDOM) are willing to step up and bring it to the situations we walk in.
Believe it, it is in you, continue to press on because you are worth it. I am worth it, and I must continue to tell myself, and to hear it from others because I have a sometimes slippery mind. Keep your chin up, keep your eyes open and your hands ready for battle. We were NOT given a back plate because we were never meant to retreat.