The Threshing Floor

If I look deep enough, honestly enough and intently enough, I find there’s a strange fear. There is a fear all too familiar but in every way, utterly unreasonable. This fear isn’t much preached about or studied in my life; neither is this fear fearless to reveal itself. Every so often I’ll find it out. The more I stare at it I sense a fondness and a perverseness all at once. It’s this: the fear of godliness.

The terror surprises me then bores me in an instant. If you can’t already tell, it’s one of the most confusing things of all. Why I don’t know but I hope it’s something that Abraham felt down deep when he was called out of Ur. I pray it’s something that the disciples felt when they dropped their nets for the last time. And I dearly hope it’s understood in some way by my peers. Why I wish this misfortune on others? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a need to feel normal. The fear of godliness; the uneasy feeling close behind the work of justification is the intimidating work of sanctification. Not too far behind. Like clockwork it trails after like the Hound of Heaven himself, as a faithful dog toddles behind his master.

I fear the constant but sudden exchange of my ashes for his beauty, the trade of my small things for his great things. I guess a part of me looks around and wonders if anyone else misses their small things. This bad man inside me loves the small things and fears the great; and you know what? We were love at first sight. The great things are great to be sure but the small things are mine, you see, they are familiar. Dirty socks for silk robes seem reasonable enough…but these dirty socks are worn in, don’t you see? Maybe silk isn’t for me.

These are the thoughts I share with Adam. They are the thoughts of a servant who cannot bear to have a master, the garden who despises the pruner, the creation who runs from the love of a Creator and more closely, a sinner who cannot stand the patient eyes of his God. I don’t know…I hope He understands; hope that he “knows my frame and remembers I am dust.” I know it’s silly. I know it’s stubborn. I know it’s ‘senseless and ignorant, a brute beast before you,’ but honest, it’s there. He scares me because he is not only a lamb but a lion, not only a suffering servant but a glorious king.

Then somewhere running through the forest of Scripture, these words step out:

 ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

So it’s a fight against that man inside me to remember who the Lord is. Seek Me. Not a false and formed god who is malicious but the true Father who doesn’t serve snakes to hungry children. Seek ME, not a Lord who unleashes suffering without thought but one who tears while he unlocks the gate. Seek ME. That part of me doesn’t get it. I love dirty socks. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But that won’t do. Not amidst a cross. So I fight to seek him with all my heart.

Truth is, my Savior scares me sometimes. It’s a chilling thought that an all powerful God is at the wheel of my life. No side seat driving allowed. He scares me to death. “Maybe we should turn here,” I petition. “Maybe we should go this way instead?” But His patient eyes tell me that ‘His ways are not my ways.’

Does godliness scare me? Constantly. Jonathan Edwards wrote his famous work Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. I don’t fear that much. I was bled for. I was died for. I guess only a silly fool like me would fear being a sinner in the hands of a loving God. But I do. Because his ways are not my ways. But his ways are good. And I am glad he’s not only changing who I am and what I do, but also changing who I want to be and what I want to do. What a genius. He’s thought of everything.

This ‘already not yet’ is killin’ me. This ‘already not yet’ is perfecting me.

So while my shallow heart wants only to ask God to improve my situation, to change my life…I will choose to pray a small little prayer in the words of an old song instead:

Change my heart O’ God

Make it ever true

Change my heart O’ God

(…swallow hard…)

…..

May I be like you.