But beware, God wishes to disturb the well-arranged life.
What would God wish to disturb but our comfort, our pride, our hoarding of impermanence, and our itinerant wonderings into endless myth? In short, He seeks to put out the fires of those self-directed desires that separate us from Him and neighbor, alongside those rationalizations hindering us from trusting Him.
If it be true that communication is manipulation (think about this deeply and honestly), where then, are our thoughts that give rise to our words? Where does our heart reside but in those desires that toil and never cease between the shores of give and take, of restraint and permission? When desire omits God, seeks an end unto its own, we live the masked misery of the well-arranged life. Of blindness, there are only two kinds. The one that fails to stare into the mirror of the soul and the one that fails to look up to the One that answers. By seeing, we save ourselves from this misery. But we choose blindness.
Of course, God wishes to disturb us, waken us to His desire to be present with us, for us to be present with Him. This is the first and most important relationship. The old saying exhorts— “Get right with God!” When we are (and this is His doing), all other relationships become right. Without Him, all are awry.
This self-desire, with which we are so fervently preoccupied, possesses a strong hand, certain to clutch tight. In its grasp is the seed of someone has wronged me, I do not have what I believe is mine. It holds our anger, our grudges and unforgiveness, our tearing down and get-evens, our unwillingness to let go of what never belonged to us. The shadow remains until the sun is directly overhead.
But there is a way, the way of the least, the reticent, the weak. God comes to each in the midst of their comfort. Gideon was doing fine as the least in the family until God showed up. Moses avoided his past until God aroused him to climb a mountain. Mary’s lowly state was magnified through God’s favor. None desired what God desired for them. God’s will manifested in their weakness. Yet, each followed God’s call. While our own strength and desire flourishes, deceives us even, following God becomes a half-measure. When we respond to God’s awakening to desire His will over our own, no longer does our desire hold sway. Realizing our weakness and inability is a first step. Sadly, some never release their grip on the deception of deserving. Where would we be if Eve told Satan, “Not my desire, but God’s.”
If we are to follow God, there comes a moment when honesty prevails. And honesty is always a disturbance to our myths about our self. Jesus said, “I came not to be served, but to serve.” Every Christian must reach this point in their walk. God should disturb us until we do.