My Heart’s Recreation
Room
“So we’re not giving up. How could we!
Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart
on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without
His unfolding grace.” 2 Corinthians 4:16
We have been talking about the rooms
in our lives that Christ desires to enter.
He wants
access to all of them. We talked about
the Dining Room, the Library, the Living Room, and the Workroom. Today, we are talking about the “Recreation
Room.” Robert Munger writes about the rec room as the places we go and the
people with whom we spend time.
Sometimes those are good and sometime those are bad. Sometime we go to places where we wouldn’t
take Jesus and sometimes we go to places we would take Him. But ultimately, we need to be able to let Him
join us everywhere we go.” For our
purposes, we need to remember that God is interested in “re-creating” us. God
has given us many wonderful things in life.
He wants to do a renovation in our lives
While many are fine with Christ simply
living in our hearts, there is another step He wants to take in us.
He wants to reign in all the rooms in our heart. Too often, we give Him “limited access.” We tend to close ourselves off to people and
God. We live in an age when just about
all human contact has to be
scheduled. Why? Because more and more we force ourselves into situations
where we are
encapsulated and, therefore, unavailable. Our homes are electronically gated. In apartments and condominiums our entrances
are
unapproachable. Our air-controlled cars mean windows up. Even our telephones are equipped with
screening that implies, "You may call me if you want, but I'll have to get
back to you." Computer access and entrance to businesses are limited. There are few front porches left. We allow
limited access into most parts of our lives. What access level have you given
Christ to your heart? We can give Him limited access or maximum access. He will never force His way into the rooms of
our lives.
We can sum up Christ’s entrance into
the world in one phrase – God came
to earth so that He could be accessible to us.
I can’t touch, hold,
or comprehend a God that is “watching
us from a distance.”
The word “incarnation” is translated in The Message Translation as “God moved
into our neighborhood.” (John 1:14) We should never grow accustomed to the
amazing thought that God became a human being (fully human and fully God). If God
wanted to reach cows, He would have become a cow. If God wanted to reach ants, He would have
become an ant. If God wanted to reach
sheep, He would have become a sheep. But
God wanted to reach humans, so He became a human.
In Gordon MacDonald’s book, Renewing Your Spiritual Passion, he
writes in a chapter called, “The Still Times” about a trip that he would often
make to a retreat sight in New Hampshire where he lived. As he would travel the last few miles
to “Peace Ledger” on Route 106, it was beautiful in the fall. However, when he traveled that same road in
the spring, it was a disaster area. As
the ground began to thaw in late March on warm days, the road would begin to
buckle like a washboard. It occurred to
him one day that while Shaker Road was like that in the early spring, the
connecting Route 106 was not. What made the difference in the two? The road
repair gang gave him the simple explanation.
When Route 106 had been constructed, the work crew had carefully laid a
thick bed of gravel beneath the roadbed that provided the necessary drainage. The roadbed was deep enough that it was
untouched by the cold going into the ground or the frost coming out of it. Shaker Road had been graded and a thick
patch of asphalt laid over it. They
said, “It was a quick and dirty job.”
Consequently, each spring the road was torn up. Our lives resemble those two roads. Those that take time for stillness end up
having a buffer zone in times of stress and pressure. Those that don’t find the cracks and strains
quickly showing
MacDonald
writes, “The only answer to a “washboardy” road is to tear it up and treat
the roadbed to a deep thickness of drainage material. The only answer to an exhausted, passionless
life is to check the condition of the subsurface, the inner spirit. That’s where the still time comes in.” We need to find those times for our own well
being and for God’s work in us. The
alternative is scary…rushed and pressed lives with little sense of peace.
The make or break factor of whether we are
re-created is connecting with God. Connecting
with God requires that we schedule times of quietness away from our busy and
hectic lives. We need to have something in our
schedule where we are away from our normal routine. Jesus did this on a regular basis. “So
we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks
like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new
life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.” 2 Corinthians 4:16” If we are to be re-created, we need to go to
the Re-Creator. He’ll give a new sense
of peace and rest in you.
Terry Risser
Reflections:
1) How has time apart rejuvenated or re-created
you?
2) Why do we often struggle to take time to
allow this to happen?
Consider reading the Word today:
Copyright
2014- Terry Risser
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