I am so determined not to categorize, divide, and shelve myself or anyone else, but when I see those 10-things-to-know-about-introverts-and-extroverts, I read them anyway. I have that...I am that way...I am NOT that way...wait, which one am I again? They are helpful to some people. I should just know better to avoid them by now.
Not what I wanted to write about.
Here it is.
The human soul goes deep. Deeper than the owner could ever explore on his own. The soul depths are dark, hot, full of gears that grind and whine and set off sparks. The monsters on the edges of maps...they are kind compared to the dragons that haunt the depths of a broken soul. Most of us build a neat cover over the pit and hope the wood we used doesn't burst into flame. We live above ground, wincing at the occasional crash and roar that leaks through the cover of the pit.
It's not that we live in a tiny space in the attic. By God's grace, we take over that dark space, shove the pit further down, oil the gears, fix the broken.
But it's deep.
Endless, it looks to me.
But I can't build up here. Not what He has put in my mind. The fortress He's thinking of has roots that need to go to the bottom of me. The foundation must stretch down and down and down, leaving not a speck of dark.
Not impossible, not easy. So.
Here begins the dismantling. He pulls up one board at a time. (It takes so long) He tosses the board aside, and I try not to look at the black hole He's made. Honestly, word picture aside, the stench of hell that rises through that is enough to make me gag.
I could hate myself.
that thought wells around me and only His grace keeps me from drowning.
The filth is in me. I am that. My depths stink like hell. Because of all those steps I took away from Holy God. Because I looked away. I could be perfect but one sin, and the dark would still be there.
God, I thought you purified me. I thought I was spotless.
You are.
Then what is this filth?
That is you.
That doesn't make sense.
I created sense, remember?
I feel Him looking at me with perfect love. Perfect, perfect, perfect. The definition of love. He grips another board and looks at me, and I nod, another step of faith for me. He stands next to me, and though the stench thickens, I feel something else. Solidarity.
How can you look at me that way if I am this?
He smiles. (I could stare at that smile and nothing else)
Now you ask the right question. You are pure to me. You are not pure to you. Is that sense to you?
I disagree with you, don't I?
Every time you look away.
I want to never look away.
Then let me make you pure in your eyes, and heal you, and destroy your dragons.
I look at the hole, and all the boards He has yet to pull up, and the sparks of the gear just below jumping up onto my clean platform.
Let you take this all away?
When He looks into my eyes with all the pleading I have ever seen in one gaze, my knees weaken with a wave of fervent gratitude. This is love, that He would go with me and tear down every cover, heal every brokenness, smooth the rough, lighten the dark, because a true love would never leave its lover less than perfect.
Please. Let me dismantle you and build you anew. Spotless and perfect in your eyes as well as mine.
God, if you do this with me I will hardly be able to breathe for gratitude.
You will breathe my Spirit. When we descend into the dark (together) and mend the broken bones and make firm what is too loose and loose what is too firm and you feel as if your very flesh were being ground away by the roughness inside you(true story) I will be with you so you will never be alone.
I will never be alone?
Never.
And you will rebuild me into perfection, but it will be your perfection(yours is best, anyway)and I will have no claim but that I can see it through these eyes you gave me?
Now you speak sense.
Then dismantle me, my God, and be ever more one with me(I mean, more every moment, every breath I take of your Spirit) and I will follow you wherever you lead me in myself.
He pulls up another board, and another, offering grace and rest when the stench is too much and the hate rises. We will be here as long as I can see. I (hope)will never enjoy my safe perch above the pit. The first gear is pride, I can see that, and it's growling and belching smoke like a dragon already, but He's with me, and that is enough.
