tyrant

I am troubled.  I am stirred.  I find myself, not suddenly, in the midst of sifting deep inside the core of my being.  I thought it was for all the crazy ways our American culture is being assaulted.  I thought it was for the eroding of our liberties and all the things we have been taught are sacred and dear.  I thought it was from without.  But the more I observe the way the world is brought under the spell of tyranny, I have been drawn nearer to God, and am feeling a growing desire to be nearer, under His sheltering wing, nearer to that unfathomable peace those who are truly His enjoy.  The more I feel compelled to draw near to Him, the more I see the source of my troubled heart is the tyrant that resides under the facade of my togetherness.  Perhaps even that is a lie only I am believing:  my togetherness.

It is not that I deny God exists, or that He loves, or that He has paid the debt we humans could never pay, making the Way for us to be with Him in relationship.  Nor is it that I deny the truths of His Word.  But I have held Him at arm’s length, consciously.  I have allowed the cares of life to choke my sensitivity to His voice.  I have worried, pushing away the times He tries to whisper to me.  I have allowed my thoughts to be pulled into the mire of hopelessness, and then tried to dull the pain with anything other than his Presence.  Yet, His blessings continue to flow.  His wonderful provision has not been halted by my petulance, nor has His protection failed to cover me and my family. 

I have always been so terribly preoccupied with doing- “doing” worship (music), “doing” ministry (service to others), “doing” relationships, life, etc., that I have almost completely forgotten about simply being His.  He is.  Simply, amazingly, completely, and effectively, He is.  He does not change like shifting shadows, like my whims, like the mood of mankind.  He is righteous, holy, just, as we are not.  Yet He is tenderly persistent in His pursuit of His joy-us-being with us.  He is always the gentleman, never venturing into where He is not welcome.  Yet His rain, His blessing falls upon those earnestly seeking Him and upon those earnestly not seeking Him.  After all the study and training, all the years of running from Him, then turning to Him, then running headlong into the dessert of worry and loathing, after my forty-four plus years, I feel as if I am seeing and understanding His Word for the first time. 

Just before He surrendered to the diabolical activity of mankind’s tyranny, Jesus spoke to His disciples.  He told them that “In this world you will have trouble,” as if they were unaware of all that had transpired in the near history of the world, as if they were unaware of the brutality of their Roman conquerors, or of the impending danger of the Jewish leaders.  It must have been a “yeah, Lord, we got that” kind of moment for those under the sound of His voice.  Yes, there is trouble.  It is all around us.  We can’t breathe but we don’t inhale the news of some new trouble, tribulation compounding its weight upon us.  And, being virtually bombarded by it all, our instinct is to either fight against it or try to hide ourselves from it.  But the example Jesus left us was not that He put up some great effort against it, or that He buried His head in the sand and tried to numb out.  He told them they would have trouble in this world.  And then He told them, “Take courage,” even to “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”  -John 16.33

The implication is there is nothing effectively lasting that we can do about the trouble in this world, nothing eternal.  We simply do not have the power.  But He does have the power, and He can do something eternal-in us, in you, in me.  Before going to the cross, becoming sin for us so that we could be in relationship with His Father-our Father, before kicking in the devil’s door and forcibly taking possession of the keys to death, hell, and the grave, He overcame the world.  The victory we need is not political, social, religious, or psychological.  The victory we need is over the tyrant that would keep us hiding in the bushes from His Presence.  The victory we need is found through the daily walking and talking with the Father, simply being with Him, that Jesus made possible.   

The world will rage.  And it may be to Americans, as it is to many Believers in other countries hostile to the Gospel, that the raging will greatly and adversely affect our lives.  But it doesn’t have the victory over us.  It doesn’t have the power to steal that invincible peace of the Father, unless we surrender to the tyrant inside.

“Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  -John 14.27