I can’t think high enough

Much has been stirring in my soul lately. I feel a wrestling and a discontent with where I’m currently residing in the promised land — the abundant Christian life. My eyes are on the far, distant mirage of future “promises” that things will get better with time. But what has happened to my eyes? Why are they not looking upon the ground on which I stand? Even as I type these words the cloud of confusion comes over me, but I know that God’s word provides vision and clarity to the believer in Christ.

Just two weekends ago I was sitting in a meeting room at Forest Home retreat center in southern California listening to Denis Rainey (founder and president of the ministry Family Life) talk about the progression of sin: where it comes, how it grows, and where it leads. Reading from Psalm 106, he began with “Both we and our fathers have sinned…” The origin of our sin is further explained in verse 7, “Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love; but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.” Simply put, how is sin first born in us? Spiritual forgetfulness.

Lately I have been hearing about various people who have walked away from Christ, chosen not to obey him, or just trusted in their own understanding. Scary though is that I could go on all day about how I’m seeing this in my own life. I often think that I must have some deep “experience” with the Lord when really God’s word, his Bible, tells me that all I need to do is turn around and starting moving towards him and he will run towards me.

Another way that God has really been working on me is through showing me that I often times want to seek my comfort or own understanding in situations instead of resting in his divine nature and sovereignty. This mostly has been coming out in the way that I’m working through my dad’s death. I badly want to grab onto any thoughts, feelings, or emotions about my past with my dad. But I’m coming to a deeper place of realizing that it is better for me to lean not on my own understanding but acknowledge him in all my ways. Amazingly, and thankfully, this actually brings more joy to my heart when I let go of my desire to control and grab onto deeper understanding of who God is.

Today as I reflect upon what has been keeping me in the “what’s next?” mentality, the Holy Spirit is lifting the veil to show me where my view of sin is shallow. As Denis pounded us with more truth, mostly pertaining to fearing God and not man, I was struck by two sentences and how they were exposing my low view of God.

“Only the fear of God can deliver us from the fear of men. A superficial view of God leads to a shallow view of sin.”

As I started noticing more closely what these sentences were saying about my soul, the depth of wrong thinking has been revealed. Sin isn’t even the root issue in my life. My view of God is the issue at hand. As Tozer says, “The most important thing about a man is what he thinks about God.” Just like Psalm 106 which reminds me that the reason our fathers committed sin was because they did not consider God’s wondrous works worthy enough to be carefully considered and lived out. Their view of God was inadequate and insufficient.

So how do we combat our low view of God? First we must realize that our view of God needs to be exposed for what it really is: wrong. I truly believe that then, and only then, will the Holy Spirit begin doing a fresh work in our hearts. As Psalm 119 says, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” This is GOOD NEWS that Jesus Christ has come to seek and save me from my wrong views, selfish ways, and utter absence of wisdom. To God be the glory. Amen.