When It’s Time To Stop Playing James Bond, and Trust Him

The music quickens, rising faster, higher, until it reaches a climatic crescendo.  The strategic one thinks quickly, walls crushing in around him. He grabs for an instrument, cuts open an entry, and escapes…just in the nick of time.

And like in all great James Bond movies, the hero out-fools, out-wits, escapes holding his breath at the last minute…before the water rises, the ceilings crash, before the walls start sliding near, squeezing the very last breathe from the one stands tall every time, claiming the glimmer in his eyes because he has all the answers, he was relieved from all the pressures that the “bad guy” tried to trap him with.

And I used to think I was James Bond, that my theology, my belief system, the power of positive thinking and my faith grounded in wishful wants and all-I-can-imagines, could trick the enemy like some Hollywood theatrics, until I was left there standing the hero, in the end.

But I was wrong.

I feel the pressure, and like a child in the grips of a stranger grabbing her, I wriggle and squirm, try to out-trick and out-learn the enemy’s schemes, pray accordingly, and fix my mind-set in hopes to free me from this pressure shrinking in while some action thrilling music accompanies me…my last minute measures mesmerizing them all.

But nothing works.

And why is it when we are in a sea of helplessness, we fight or squirm? Or like James Bond, we look for some escape hatch, empowering us to stand firm in ease and comfort, because we have been taught to think, we alone can earn some heroic medal of honor in this life…

While still, hoping for a sequel.

When our Savior…wasn’t it the higher He got, the lower? And didn’t He love his life enough to not lay it down for you and I even though we deserved not even an ounce of it?  Why did He not appease the world’s hope for some domineering Savior, or reign as if in Hollywood, like double-o-seven?

And yet I wrestle, like Jacob with the angel.  Demanding, insisting on blessings, clinging to these wonderings, embracing my own Savior-complex leaving me painfully trapped between these four walls of my circumstances.

And when did I think the gospel ever meant, Christians would not be persecuted, Daniel’s did not have to step into the Lions Den, the Gospel throughout history would not be spread by the blood of the Saints, but instead by the glory of man, the praises of people, the blessings of worldly applause’s or materialism?

Then, like a switch, his word strikes a chord within me, whispering softly to those tender spots, lain down gentley upon my wiggling body, trying to escape….

“Stop fighting, child.”

And still, when I hear His word, “child”, it is not like an angry dad, but a loving Father.  It is words spoken gentle as if from a Shepherd trying to free his sheep from some thistles she’s incapable of wrestling from.

And yet, I wonder…to be free, don’t we need to be still?  Instead of fighting or running, instead of wrestling this world…don’t His arms come near us when we cry in surrender, look up in exhausted helplessness, stop thinking we can fix it all, without His miraculous touch?

So, I slow.  Chest rises, mind clears. My fight or flight surges to a third option, one I didn’t think of in the heat of this boiling caldron.  “Shrink”

And I have heard it said, “The Christian walk is not one where we rise higher to new levels, but one of surrender and getting lower.” Lower still only stops the struggle, calms the heartbeat, softens muscles flexing to escape.

Still sometimes, we must sit and wait. Like the faith giants of old, that had no hope unless their Savior came.  Like Moses pressed between the army and the Red Sea, like Rahab dead if it were not for God’s people repaying her for putting out the chord and believing in a God she had not seen…

Giving up her self-sufficiency, finding her all-sufficient God was all she needed when the walls crumbled, when the trumpets sounded, when the battle got increasingly dangerous and she had nowhere to go.

His blood,  I see sprinkled all along the road to Calvary. The saints in the prison using their difficulties to preach to the most needy, the criminals, the worst transgressors.  The wine press push down, the wheat thrashed so that the kernel would be left only, separated from the stock, gold refined in fire burning away the dross…

And although “man” wants fame, people even Christians, might want praises of men, acclimation, mind secretly wishing, “James Bond” titles and demonstrations; this world saying run, fight, stay alive, use your faith to find an escape hatch so none of you will be boiled alive…

God says, “come to me and die”, “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it is not worthy of my Kingdom”, unless we leave all we have and come follow him, we might forever be stuck in between the pressures of trying harder, waning hopeless, and wanting Kingdom benefits that in light of eternity, just won’t last…

Unless we love Jesus more than our flesh and are willing to abandon ourselves into the hands of God during the pressures of every season….we will forever wrestle with all we are, and all we were meant for, all of the promises He has ordained for eternity and for this life.

So, I bend low. Tears flow as I stop looking for answers, ease, comfort, personal victories that would esteem me more than Jesus…

And it is here where I let go. Again.

There on the carpet at the Lord’s feet, where all weak men are made strong, where all empty vessels are poured out and risen for His glory and His alone, there where God becomes more than an escape hatch, but a companion, a friend, a personal relationship that we can trust…

Whether it looks like we are sinking, whether we are martyrs or persecuted, whether He pulls us from our circumstances, or not.

And I wonder if the pressure the enemy has places on us to crush us, God intended for it to drive us to enter His rest, holding fast to His faithfulness and unconditional acceptance, and it is there as we let ourselves  shrink smaller, our circumstances become gifts allowed by God to purify and sanctify us.

And the question rises….will we be willing to stop wanting to be tall stalks shining in the sun of other people’s eyes, and give our lives as crushed wheat in the hands of God, ready to be used?

I let out my breathe in emptiness and say, “yes, Lord” whatever you bring me through, whatever pressures seem impossible…you are all I need.  Your glory shines brighter than darkness, your Victory has already been won through your death and resurrection, your freedom is something I can grab and hold onto…

Not because I have any resources of my own…

But simply because I have you.

(Linking with Barbie)