January 8, My Alibi

No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God.
-C.S. Lewis

The chores, the lists, the to-dos, the wants, desires, and needs we all have in our every day life pale in comparison to the one thing that matters; when's the last time you drank from the living fountain; when's the last time you sat at the Father's feet; when's the last time you read from the scriptures and listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit illuminating the words from inside of you? I don't nearly often enough take time out to do what truly matters... to meet with our Father.

Lewis says that the first and greatest commandment is to learn to like being emptied, stripped to nothing in the presence of God (in different words). The Bible says that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your soul, all your spirit, and all your mind. I suppose its easiest to love Him with your all when you're stripped down to nothing. I guess the question is, since there is no hiding from God, do you choose to enter His presence so that you can be emptied, lay your crowns at His feet, and adore Him or not? That's really what it all boils down to.

One of my very favorite songs is by a Swedish band called Blindside. The song is titled "My Alibi." It begins with the lyrics:

My feet felt light for the first time in months
It was like you came walking across the room
Straight at me and then straight through me
And then stopped and stood still for awhile
I knew then that i'd been lonely for quite some time
And as we started to dance you gently took off my tear soaked coat
And let it fall heavy to the floor and then
We danced some more 

When all is said and done
When all is gone and still just begun
I will be asked what i did with my time and why
Can you be my alibi
Cause i know i spent it dancing with you

I can think of no better place to be when standing before the Lord and He begins to take account of what I've done then to be able to say to Him: I spent my time dancing with you. My heart throbs at the thought. Like Paul said, pray without ceasing (I'm pretty sure it was Paul). I've studied out the word "pray" in several locations in scripture and it often means something like, 'to drawn near to' the Lord. Pray without ceasing. Dance with the Holy Spirit/ with Jesus. Let God be your strong tower, hiding place, refuge from the storm (life). Once again I'm preaching to myself almost exclusively but this is my heart's desire. I want to be emptied before the Lord and to love being there.

It is religion itself - prayer and sacrament and repentance and adoration - which is here, in the long run, our sole avenue to the real. Like mathematics, religion can grow from within, or decay. The Jew knows more than the Pagan, the Christian more than the Jew, the modern vaguely religious man less than any of the three. But, like mathematics, it remains simply itself, capable of being applied to any new theory of the material universe and outmoded by none. 

When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him. He is back where he always was, where every man always is.... No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God; there is no copse, no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover.... In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish, leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and greatest commandment.
-C.S. Lewis
The Business of Heaven