Friday 28 January 2011

Looking for something?

If I only did this once then learned my lesson it wouldn’t be so bad, or, even if it took me a couple of times to learn I could live with it. However, when I constantly do it again and again, each time promising myself that I have now learned my lesson, it will be different next time, it can easily become a matter for despair...either that or I am just getting old and senile, something I think my kids have been persuaded of for a while...

I am of course talking about car keys, glasses, wallet..... After a long and fruitless search for my car keys, when I was of course in a hurry to get somewhere, as I got more and more frustrated with myself, accusing myself of all manner of ailments which got progressively worse from mere forgetfulness to seriously considering I should have myself sectioned, I eventually conceded defeat, reconciled to not getting to where I intended going. Defeated and demoralised I decided to have a cup of coffee and calm down. and, upon opening the fridge to get the milk, what do you think I found....I hardly dare admit it, ...Ok, milk, the keys weren’t there either.

We have a key hook near our front door (note to would be burglars – not close enough to get them using a coat hanger!) and the obvious answer, the solution to my problem, the thing I promise myself I will do, is simply to walk through the door, lock it, and hang the keys on the hook. Why, why, why , why don’t I do it? ..I don’t know.

But, apparently, my wife does do it, and that is where she had hung them when she found them in whatever random location I had abandoned them.....

Relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things but searching or yearning for something that seems constantly to elude you can be very frustrating. The more important the thing for which you search the more frustrating it becomes!

In the bible, in numerous places, God promises rest and peace to people. This is real rest, not merely a snooze or ‘power nap’ in the middle of a busy day. It is the deep heart knowledge that you are secure in the care and purpose of your creator, forever. You can rest in that knowledge, you can depend upon His presence in all situations. The peace He gives is a deep heart peace that comes from knowing you are where you should be in the universe, that your life is centred on God, that your purpose and direction are not simply the at the whim of unthinking and uncaring circumstances and forces, that you have ultimate meaning and value, that you are loved by the One who is always faithful and always able. This is the rest and the peace that so many people search for (however they articulate it) and that they find so very elusive.

The writer to the Hebrews, in chapter 3 says of people:

‘Their hearts are always going astray, they have not known my ways’...... ‘they shall not enter my rest’

This is the key hook, the answer to our longing for rest and peace, but why, why, why don’t we learn the lesson?

Make it a life priority to know God’s ways – make it a life goal to focus our heart on His ways , to have Him remould and remodel our lives so they are pointed in His direction, then, and only then will we enter that place of rest, experience that depth of peace that so often seems to lie just beyond our reach. This ‘key hook’ has a name – Jesus, ‘who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but instead, made himself a servant’ . He alone leads us into our rest and our peace.

Just like with my keys, it has taken me a very long time and a lot of fruitless and frustrating searching in the wrong places.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

No comments:

Post a Comment