John 1:1,14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…
When I focus on me, I turn my eyes and ears away from God. The more intense my focus is on self, the worse my sight and hearing become. In my drug addiction, as I was completely enslaved to my own defect, I could not see or hear God at all. My condition deteriorated to the point where I began to question even his existence. As I could not feel, see or hear God, I became convinced that even if He was there, He had abandoned me.
My addiction blunted my senses and warped my reasoning. I shut my eyes and closed my ears to God and then had the audacity to blame him, if he existed at all. In my desperation, I begged to hear his voice, but I did not really want to hear what He had to say. I just wanted some magical sign to prove He was still there.
In the opening words of John, we are told that God is the great communicator who has always been speaking to us. God has spoken to us through his creation and through our existence. He sent Jesus, the Word of God, who is the complete manifestation of his message to us.
Jesus, God’s word, tells us that God loves us even in our disaster and longs to live in a loving relationship where our eyes and ears are open to him. He desires to connect with us in a very real, intimate communion with him. It is because of Christ that we can see and hear God if we will but open our eyes and ears to him.
God has done and always will do his part, reaching out and speaking to us. It is now up to us to open our eyes and ears to him. How do we do this? We do this by obeying Jesus command to do whatever it takes daily to abandon self and follow him (Luke 9:23). This absolutely takes work, discipline and effort on our part.
Just as I could not run a marathon without training my body to do so, I cannot see or hear God if I do not work at it. I cannot look continually at pornography and expect to see God. I cannot fill myself with drugs and expect to feel God. I do not get to feed my addiction to my pride, anger, greed or appearance and hear God’s voice. If I pursue me, I will not magically find God. I will find me. It is only in abandoning the destructive pursuits of self and desperately seeking God that I find him.
I have, in my warped thinking, pursued self, refusing to spend any time reading, praying or meditating. Then, I wondered why I could not see or hear God. It was not that God was silent. It was that I was not listening. If I want to know God, I need to daily choose to abandon self and pursue him.
God reveals himself to those who truly seek him.
The Seeds of the Spirit is a daily blog based on a walk through the New Testament. Written from the perspective of my own addiction, it explores the common defects of our flesh nature and the solution, our spirit life. If you find it helpful, sign up for the blog as a daily email, tell your friends and like/share it on Facebook.