A Second Leg

A person close to myself mentioned recently that my last post was...well...a bit harsh lets say. She insinuated that the language was sharp and the message somewhat bitter and brash. For the last couple days I've thought about that, pondered it, prayed about it, and somehow I've actually found the time to respond.

I stand by what I wrote. Completely. However, I stand behind it like a one-legged man stands besides a brick wall...one leggedly. In that sense I feel that my message did not fail, nor state something wrong or heretical (much less utterly honest) rather, it was incomplete, underfed, and...well...

one legged.

We have given ourselves to our idols; daily. Not merely our greed, our lust, and our "college culture morality" but also our facetiousness, our prejudice, and even our sloth. Everyday we succumb to mere animalistic pleasures, to our own poor inclinations, and the easy paths we pave across unstable grounds. The thing is, many of us have given up on our God via our methods and actions and have allowed these 'foreign deities' to become our objects of worship thru unholy sacraments of our many sins and trespasses. Still, I see others, some figments of the media, some close friends, and even the guy writing this garbage.

Yeah, me too.

None of us are acting like grace matters. We cry for comfort and rest, but what we really mean by that is that we want to be sedated, numbed, pumped full of anaesthesia and laughing gas in the fashion of a Houdini. We're Christians, not escapists. For how down-trodden and vapidly wretched this earth is, our catharsis will be (and is) very short lived if we are embracing our very limited (not to mention cheap and powerless) resources of hap and laugh. There's nothing wrong enjoying a beer or two, indulging upon a pizza, or wrapping one's arms around their beloved, but it is when we have exalted these goods to the highest of peaks that we have begun the construction of our own Mt. Olympus and it's precious, but shoddy, Parthenon of knick-knack gods, bubbly and empty-headed nymphs, and angels of dissension and disdain.

And that's why we need grace. That's why grace matters. Until we can accept His hands as our guide, and until we can honestly admit the dirt and filth we have not only swallowed but have considered a feast and have venerated as such, is just what it really is; until then we cannot accept grace whatsoever.

As for grace...what an amazing thing! John 10:10 states that the thief comes only to kill and steal, but that Christ comes that others may have life. That's the thing about these idols we have fallen to venerate; they don't come to us, we must come to them. Christ reverses this, in fact, he comes to us. He knocks at the door and beckons us to answer and let Him in. He asks us to set Him upon our highest place, to offer Him our praise and daily devotion. We cannot serve two masters, we cannot sing two songs, our hearts cannot be aligned to two polar opposites.

And thus we come back to heaven. We come back to the only thing that can truly satisfy our hearts. This is why I miss heaven. I'm sick of screwing up, I'm sick off worshiping mythological gods and goddesses and following their empty rituals. I hate our modern temples of capitalism, ambiguous lust, and empty evenings devoid of moral intentions. That's the other leg of it all.

What a great Savior!