The Idol of Acceptance.

I abandoned this blog almost as quickly as I had commenced it, noticing that my only temptation was to blog in sorrow rather than in praise. I have decided that my mind was not at ease for that season in my life and that, though sorrow still finds me, I am ready to engage this world of blogging for the sake of release and not another way to try and impress the world around me.

I've been given the gift of adaptability, but the curse of resistance to change - it is the anticipation that nearly kills me every time.

How might one prepare oneself and yet be fully invested in the things given? How can you continually consider the future without lending yourself to it, and missing where you are - and the possibilities of it?

Father, You see me and know me. Lord, you guide me and discipline me. Jesus, you see my wickedness and you still persist in Your love. Holy Spirit, You keep me thirsting. Savior, You bring me rest.

The past few months have been nothing short of exhausting and stressful. I felt (still feel) buried. After wrestling, struggling, crying out to the Lord and trying to find my sanity in the midst of rejection and extreme discombobulation (to say the very least), it finally occurred to me that the “safe place” I clung to, was not safe at all! Comfort we seek, and comfort - I am certain - will lead us to death. The thing that we do not realize is that when a place so readily accepts us, when we find our confidence in others' opinion of us, we are just as doomed than if we had no community at all! My false sense of security led me to trust in my control over the lie that I carried. The Lie? That I am rejected. The self contrived remedy? To receive as much acceptance as possible, from as many people as possible.

It has only taken an ounce of rejection to reveal where my worship has been. I learned that, in my wickedness, I would rather have death, than rejection. I have fought every day of my life as a believer, to seek acceptance from humans, rather than acknowledging fully, my acceptance from my God. In Ezekiel 16, the Lord says of this:

" 'I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10 I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12 and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14 And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.

15 " 'But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. Such things should not happen, nor should they ever occur. 17 You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. 18 And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. 19 Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD."

"Yet," He reminds us,"I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you (60)."

This is so emblematic of His love for us, and our natural response to Him; to use the gifts He us, and to make them into idols. I have Jeremiah 17 as my prayer, in seeking a right heart before God. If you use your best friend, your boyfriend, your husband, your old friends, your city, home, parents or reputation as your security, beware and flee from evil! For your Father is a jealous God, and will return your affections to Himself, at whatever cost!

“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
and in the end he will prove to be a fool.
A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,
is the place of our sanctuary.

O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the LORD,
the spring of living water.
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise."

No amount of suffering is in vain, for as I become more aware of my sinfulness, and suffer the pain of those who are also in need of a savior, I am reminded, by grace, that none is in vain. For as a wise puritan once prayed:

"Make me an instrument in thy hands, ready to seize every opportunity of usefulness, and willing to offer all of my talents to Thy service... my trials have been fewer than my sins... all Thy work for me is perfect, and I praise thee."