Reality At All Costs, Part 2

Keeping up appearances. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

But we all do it all the time, don’t we? Social media is rabid with pretending to be okay when everything isn’t okay. When was the last time you answered, “I’m good,” when everything was not good and you absolutely, positively were not okay?

Our lives can sometimes be burning with troubles and problems so complex and challenging, but our reaction to the bad choices we make or bad things that happen to us flows out of our hearts in two common ways. 

Relationally, the fallout either demands the thing be hidden or covered up, while we spend incredible amounts of energy and resources doing that. Or we point our finger in blame with anger that ushers in more pain in unforgiveness and bitterness. Genesis 3:7 – NLT Genesis 3:12 – NLT 

And then we cope with all the fallout. 

We hide and cope, or we blame and cope. Or the messy combo of all three. Ugg! There is no shortage of ways to cope in this life –  aka the easier, regret-filled path I’ve talked about before. We have endless ways to numb the pain from our difficulties in this world. But hiding, blaming, and coping will never heal our bodies, minds, and definitely not our souls. 

We will always come up short when we place hope only in temporary human strategies and fixes. 

Nothing and no one but Jesus will save us from ourselves. He can give us the power of His presence to heal through His indwelling Holy Spirit when we’ve accepted His free gift of salvation. We are enabled to enjoy long-term rest in His sufficiency and peace and respond in honoring and loving ways when our human nature wants to hide, blame or cope. We’re created to thrive in only one healthy way, within a relationship with a loving God, and through Him, everything else flows. Matthew 6:33 – NLT 

Only Jesus empowers a life free of shame – all the relational consequences and fallout from sin. But, unfortunately, freedom from shame is still a war with daily battles we fight with strategy – more to come later.

Alcohol dulled my senses to the pain that was screaming out, trying to tell me something. It kept me from hearing and seeing God in my life when my pride determined I didn’t need any help to solve the problem.

I got used to feeling numb. I had easy access whenever I wanted to do something to make my troubles disappear for a few hours. I withdrew, becoming angrier and angrier with no outlet. I became accustomed to my way of dealing until it was “normal” to me. 

But it wasn’t normal. 

Those “spotlight” moments I discussed in the previous post were a brief collision of God’s truth and my human thoughts and behavior. 

For a few split seconds, I experienced a flash of spiritual perception and clarity. It was God’s Holy Spirit shedding light on what I was doing. It was uncomfortable and convicting, and I felt so exposed. John 3:20 – NLT 

But this was an opportunity God was giving me to fess up. To say I’m sorry and ask Him into my situation. I didn’t listen right away, but thankfully He still pursued me. 

We can dull our spiritual perception – dull our ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing in and around us all the time. God talks about this concept in His Word when He talks about hardened hearts and stiff necks. We dull our spiritual perception by choosing these reactions instead of Him. Reactions like stubbornness, pride, arrogance, not being sorry, and turning away from sin when we know about it, or when we dishonor God in our speech and behavior and are unwilling to be led. These attitudes harden our hearts. 

What’s dulling your spiritual perception to hear from a God who loves you so much He gave His only Son for you?

God’s promise in His Word says this; if we could see and hear Him, we would understand and return to Him, and He would heal us. Matthew 13:15 – NIV

Will you seek to see and hear?

[In Reality at all Costs, Part 3, we’ll talk about the difference between a real relationship with Jesus and human religion in pursuing “Reality at all Costs.”]