Influencers Weekly Devotional- The Quest of God's Man

The Quest of God's Man   by   Rocky Fleming       HE makes me want to understand the depth of HIS love.  The more I see and experience HIS love, the more I realize that there is more … so much more … that I do not understand.  What will it take to open a heart crusted over with years of fear, self-pity and wounds from those things that have caused me to be cautious, fearful, and reluctant to trust anyone other than myself?  Could it be that HE knows that I must be undone to be redone?  Is HE working in my life to do this?  Is this what is being done?  Is HE stripping off the scales of resistance that have encrusted around my heart and life … so that I can know HIS love as I have never known it before?  It hurts.  It shakes me.  It breaks me.  But somehow I know that HE is strategic in HIS surgery, and what HE is doing is needed.  What will it take to loosen my grip and grasp HIS hand instead of holding on to dust that will fall apart under the pressure of life?  What is HE doing to cause me to let go?  I want to let go, but can I trust HIM?   I am seeing a process that begins with a fearful challenge that shakes my confidence in myself and my self-made strategies for insulating myself from hurts.  Those strategies have been layered around me by my efforts with accumulating wealth, prestige, or other defenses for safety from the many dangers that lurk around me.  When I give myself to the effort of building my safe-house with such things, it consumes me and causes me to see even greater dangers and pitfalls that I could fall in, bringing more than just myself into their grasp.  They leave me empty.  I cannot gather enough that will give me the peace I long for.  It is never ending.  It is not just me that is in danger.  Those pitfalls bring into their grasp the ones I love and care for even more than my own life.  My fear is compounded by my fear for them, and if they will be either the victims or benefactors of my defenses.  If I let those defenses down, will we be the recipients of HIS loving care that holds us up … or the victims of a careless man who trusted in a foolish notion?  I count the cost and it scares me.  Can I trust HIM as HE is compelling me to do?  Can I take the hand HE extends, and leave the false security that stands between us?   I look around me and count the cost, as I consider loosening my grip and trusting the LOVE that strips down my defenses, rearranges my life and compels me to let go … to just let go … and allow HIM to catch me, and those I love so much.  Can I do this?  Can I trust HIM like this, for I know that I cannot understand the depth of the greatest love of the Universe unless I remove the false security and defenses that have isolated me from knowing it?  But HE has said HE will permit no idols before HIM and this keeps me from grasping HIS hand.  Do I have idols that I find security in more than HIS assurance and promises?  Can it be that HE is attacking these false comforts and fortresses of refuge, so that I can know HIS care and protection that is better than anything I could ever build or trust?   Can it be that my self-made, man-made strategies and efforts are the idol in my life that HE tells me to abandon?  I can find no comfort by declaring I have no graven images like Baal or Moloch that I worship, for I know there is something there offending HIM. I say I would never bow down to those ancient idols described in the Bible. But I am reminded that Mammon is the idol of wealth, and it has represented my greatest hope for a safety net and fortress of defense. HE said that I cannot serve two masters for I would love one and hate the other … and then HE said that I cannot serve HIM and Mammon at the same time. Can this defense that I have carefully built around me with my trust in Mammon and the things it provides be the very thing that keeps me from knowing HIM and HIS love like HE wants me to know?   I ask myself if there can be a true LOVE that would drop me if it compels me to trust HIM and fall into HIS care? Could HE have in HIM any deceit that would ask me to trust HIM, and then abandon me? Could the greatest love in the Universe coexist with misleading and ruthless deception? Not HIM! Not the ONE who has shown Himself to be true and merciful and gracious throughout the ages. Even if I mistake a voice that I think is HIS and it leads me away from HIS chosen path that keeps us safe, would not HIS voice break through any confusion and be made clear so that I find the path back to HIM only a few steps away? Is that not the way the greatest love in the Universe will lead HIS faithful follower? I am comforted by this. I am assured that this is why I can walk away from Mammon and serve the King of the Universe. I know I must declare my faith, and grasp HIS outstretched hand to me. I must. There is no other way.   I choose to abandon my grasp on the securities that I found only moments of rest with, and to instead hold onto the hand that compels me to dwell in HIS shadow. I now see that I was misled by those false securities and bastions of pride. They could never provide a true and total defense for every pitfall. Every dollar could be stolen, lost or eroded by devaluation. Every material structure could decay, rot or burn. Every defense of medical science that assured me that I would have a long life and good health could be trumped by an invisible virus or bacteria they never knew existed, or an indefensible disease or an unforeseen accident. My hope of protecting a body that would end in dust was a foolish effort in delaying the inevitable, and every other false security was built on deception. I thought I had defenses that wouldn't falter. Oh how foolish I was to think these things could outdo HIM and HIS care. But I no longer put my hope and trust in those things. Instead I reached up and grasped the hand that was reaching down, and found that which I was longing for. The security. The safety. The purpose. The life. All of these things were found in the LOVE that HE invited me to. It was there all the time. HE was compelling me to come … and to find that which is created in me to need, and to enjoy. I found my CREATOR. I found HIS care. I found my FATHER. I found life as HE wanted me to have. All I had to do was let go and trust HIM, and allow HIM to prove that HE would catch me. This is the greatest LOVE of the Universe. HIS name is Jesus, and it is HIS nail scarred hand that reaches to us to take us into HIS care. He reaches even now. Can you not see it? Can you not hear HIS voice assuring you that HE is the way, the truth and the life? Will you believe HIM? Will you trust HIM. Will you take HIS hand to find a love that is waiting for you to lead you to paths of righteousness? You will discover that your quest for life will never be found any other way. It is the quest of God's man that leads you to that which you long for. It is HIM.