Come

TUESDAY 2.12.08 - 2 CHRONICLES 30:8-9
Do not be stiff necked, as your parents were; submit to the LORD> Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. If you return to the LORD, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.

It was unbelievably hard to take You with me yesterday. At the end of my devotions, I tried to ask a question that I could not remember for the life of me while I sat at my desk yesterday afternoon. I thought and thought and thought, I mean, I could have logged back on but that wouldn't have proved the point, would it? I often get my "God-time" done and then move on to the next thing. I can't take You with me very well.

Indeed, something along these same lines jumps out at me in today's Lent text. It's this:

"...submit to the LORD. Come to his sanctuary..."

Come. That's a typical Christian saying. "Come as you are." But as I suddenly think about it, how often I am asking You to come where I am. My prayers are filled with thoughts of "Lord, be with me/us." Even yesterday, I wanted to take You with me in my question, in trying to find an answer to my question... my faith is often all about me and my quest to figure things out.

But instead, I truly am convicted this morning that my focus needs changing. Come to the sanctuary. Come to God. Further down this morning's passage is the phrase, "return to the LORD." Coming to You, returning to You. This is a beautiful understanding. Submission is all about You. As Joel pointed out on Sunday, submission is the melding of two wills into one. And that one will is Yours. To know Your will I must come to You. Or at least, that's a faster way of knowing than trying to guess where my will matches up with Yours. In addition, when I come to You, and You show me Your face, and You smile upon me, and I know Your will, I will then also know where my will is incongruent with Yours. This makes the question of what I need to sacrifice much clearer.

Of course, the question now is how do I come to You? What does that even mean? For now, I'm satisfied in remembering that it is all about You. Remembering to lift my eyes up and not simply look around. Remember that it is You and Your will that I am seeking. Remembering that I need to come to You.