Going It Alone

Going it alone can be a time when we move into greater personal responsibility for our lives.  Going it alone can also be a time of living independent of others in a way that hinders responsibility. 

When I read over my journals for the last two decades, the one thing that I see as a  fatal flaw is my lack of others in my seeking of the Lord.  Almost all of my seeking is just that, “my seeking”.  In many ways I have lived out those Biblical passages of “seek and you shall find”.  What I now know with some certainty, is that God has made the way to Himself a pathway of community.  We are each a part of His body and as such need the rest of His body to reach the fullness of Christ Jesus. 

What I also now see and rejected in my youth, is that conflict and personality difficulties are one of the greatest blessings of transformation.  People are a gift one to another, and not just for what might be positive input,  but for the refining too.  In our consumer driven world, few of us choose friends that irritate us.  Most of us even leave churches or religious groups that do not meet the needs we demand they meet.  The result is a life that has much less refinement toward Christ and much more consumer choices as to what I desire to be in the pursuit of the Lord. 

While American culture applauds personal development, Christianity does not.  Christianity is not a man made religions with man made followers.  One might argue that everything that does not require the Spirit of God is not Christian.  This might smack at our flesh and pride that would reason that we have minds and wills that are good.  Yet are they.  Is there anything good in us.  Yes, sure, even the most evil of us can do good.  But is there anything good in us since the fall.  Even when there was just two brothers on the earth, one killed the other.

That last comment may seem random until we connect the dots of anger and murder.  Is not one of the main sins of the people of God today a spirit of murder toward all those that disagree with us and our agenda.  You might say that we have almost no refinement, no skills in dealing with people that are not us.  We manifest corporately what we are in the individual.  Years of training to be a “person of God” are now manifesting in a lack of being the “people of God”.  The rage so often manifest in our midst and in our meetings is not over pride, self-love, envy, jealously, ambition.  These we neglect as we attack people who fail at our consumer chosen sins.  We do not cry out against our sins.  We turn a blind eye to our faults as we cry out against the sins of others. 

Just the other day I was offended  by the Lord as He spoke to me about how He sees a man I don’t care much for, but pray for.  In this intercessional confrontation God revealed to my heart that His heart was broken for this man.  God is hurt by the weight and burden he carries for the sins of others.  God is sorrowful that this man can not get free from the bigotry, close mindedness, the rejection of others.  Unable to change the society he lives in and unable to change the minds and actions of those who reject and belittle him, this man carries the weight of their actions and choices in his own spirit.  The result is bitterness, rage, slander and hopelessness.  God is grieved that he would let this happen.  God is saddened that he cannot let it go and choose to carry his own burdens and let go the oppressing weight of those that are not his to carry.

After that revelation to my heart about the heart of God I saw in me a change of attitude.  I was refined by God’s heart for this man and I saw how limited my world view was of him.  I had one judgment of this man when I stood alone, but standing with the Father I was given another vision to embrace.  This encounter is not just a mental exercise, but an encounter that cry's out to my whole being to be different, to have different body language as well as different attitudes.  This encounter was God’s grace so that I could enter into fellowship with someone not like me and see God in them.  As a consumer and “alone” seeker of God I would never choose this.  I would pass him by in quite neglect as I sought intimacy with God. 

Mat 5:14-16

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;  (15)  nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.  (16)  "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

I live most of the time as if this passage says that the “message” or the “gospel” or the “truth” is the light of the world.  I also don’t like the imagery of God setting us up to shine with no place to hide.  Then there is the command, or at least instruction to shine in a way that others see and glorify God.  I assume that there is a way to “shine” which results in something other that God’s glory.  We can illuminate with no good results.  I think I do this when I live the alone life, when I assume my passion, my desire for God, my calling, my gifts, my service is enough to make good light.