In my dorm room, one of our lights was out, so my roommate sent in a maintenance order to get it fixed. We didn't know when maintenance would come, but we figured we probably wouldn't be there. Well, I was there.
I was asleep and heard a knock on the door so I jumped out of bed and there he was. He was there to fix the light. It was awkward and embarrassing and the kind little man with only the best intentions written all over his face said, "Did I wake you up?!" And of course I said no.
So he woke me up to fix the light. And now I can see just a little bit clearer. It's just a little bit brighter in here.
But he had to wake me up. Or he couldn't get in.
I hardly ever use little analogies from my own life, but this one is just too good for the concept that God has been teaching me not to use. And it's been stuck in my head ever since it happened. This really happened. God's got jokes.
Now, analogies to describe spiritual things can never do justice, they can never really perfectly convey the mighty works of such an eloquent and creative Writer. And I am not claiming that this one does. But just think about it.
Too often, we don't want to wake up. We just want to stay in our comfortable place. We want breakfast in bed. We want to watch the cars pass by from the window in our 3rd story rooms. But we never want to go down the stairs. We never want to throw back the covers.
Well, scrambled eggs can't make themselves.
Our lights may be broken. Our vision may be just a little fuzzy; it may be focused on something else. We may be missing something that cannot be seen, something waiting for us in the corner of the room where the light doesn't quite reach. We can't see it because our light is broken. But we don't want to get up. So we may never know it's there.
We just wait for the light to be fixed. It will just "happen" to us, right? We don't have to make an effort to meet people or to fix something in our hearts because it is just a phase and it will pass, right? We'll be with the right person one day, right? We'll be in the right town sometime, right? Or in the right major, or at the right church. This will all work itself out. It will just happen, we think. So we don't even try. We just sit in our beds, hoping for that middle lightbulb in the center of our ceiling to get fixed by itself.
We need Jesus.
We desperately need Jesus to wake us up. And sometimes we even ask Him. Sometimes we even say, "God just wake me up! Wake me up for what you want me to see!" But we really have no intentions whatsoever to wake up. Because it's going to be awkward and embarrassing if He wakes us up because we just look so rough when we first get up. What, with our hair everywhere and our eyelids oozing and our faces scrunched up. Or we don't want to wake up because it's cold outside or it's raining or we just don't feel like it. So we sit. Our bodies ache for something more, our muscles long to be exercised or even just stretched. Our bones are dry and we sit.
Bones.
How does this tie in? I'm not sure. I think the concept of bones signifies depth. Bones represent this organic, natural state of vulnerability, of openness, of the very essence that holds our bodies together. When we ask Jesus to be in our bones, it's like we are telling Jesus that we want to go further than skin deep. We want more.
And Jesus doesn't need us to tell Him that. He does it anyway! He came into our bones the day they crushed His. He flooded our bodies the day they broke His. The day we broke His.
He fills us! Oh, He fills us! He only wakes us up because He has so much for our eyes to see. And by so much I mean Him. He wants us to see Him, His beautiful face and everything that comes from His hand. His creations, His goodness, His glory. He just wants that for us because He loves us. He doesn't want to talk to a sleeping version of us, one that cannot make replies, one that can't laugh or cry even or do anything more than just show off our skin as we sleep. Because that's all that we offer Him. Our skin. Jesus just wants to know us. He just wants to look into our eyes. He just wants to fix the light so we can see a little better. So we can see eternity with Him.
But we have to let Him in.
We have to let Him in when He knocks.
God is a rebuilder. He restores things and makes them better, new creations, even. But how can God be a rebuilder and a restorer if there is nothing to rebuild? How can God rebuild if He doesn't wreck, first?
Wrecking scares us.
But God is a wrecker. He wrecks every preconception we ever had about life and love and motivation and purpose and direction. He wrecks our hearts, our souls. It hurts, but He has to do it.
Where God's perfect love is, there can be no fear, so He wrecks it.
Where God's spirit is, there can be no oppression, so He wrecks it.
Where God's holiness is, there can be no impurity, so He wrecks it.
Where God's grace is, there can be no guilt, so He wrecks it.
Where God's inheritance is, there can be no identity crisis, so He wrecks it.
Where God's Son is, there can be no sin, so He wrecks it. And He wrecks it forever.
And He rebuilds. He begins this construction of this beautiful, beautiful new creation. Reading Isaiah, a wonderful depiction of wreckage and rebuilding, I found myself on the edge of my seat saying, "Is He going to rebuild Israel!? Is He going to rebuild the land!? Surely He isn't going to leave it in ruins!"
"Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.' And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord;and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken." -Isaiah 64:11-12
Not forsaken. Not barren.
Sought out. Redeemed.
God cannot build onto you a grand palace where there lies a dozen rickety shacks. The Constructor cannot build without first demolishing. There has to be space. There has to be space for Him to build. So everything that is there to begin with, must be destroyed.
Put off your old self.
And let Him renew your mind.
So, by saying, "I trust Jesus. I want Jesus." We cannot just add Him onto all the other junk in our lives. Jesus comes into that junk and He wrecks it. He comes into our dirty hearts and He cleanses them. He is not the powder we brush over our blemishes. He removes them. He doesn't just cover them up, He takes them away. To have Jesus, we must let Him have us too. All of us.
Jesus wants to fix our light, even if it means waking us up.
Jesus wants to make us beautiful, even if it means bringing out the wrecking ball.
Jesus wants to enter our bones, even if it means tearing back our skin.
Let Him in.
"Love be in my bones, love shake down my walls..."
LMB
"Love be in my bones, love shake down my walls..."
LMB
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