Sunday, October 20, 2013

Living with Eyes Wide Open

Every once in awhile, it happens. The darkness is peeled away as if it is a veil and we get a brief glimpse of pure beauty. That leaves us breathless. That leaves us in awe. We see how it's supposed to be. A moment where you finally get it. For a fleeting moment, it all makes sense. Sometimes these glimpses come through music, or a line in a movie, maybe what another person said. But for me, it most often comes through the pages of a book. I got a brief glimpse of something more, and again, this time it was through the pages of a book. More about brief glimpses of beauty I've found can be seen Here.

Eyes Wide Open by Ted Dekker.

I'll try to keep all the spoilers out but can't promise anything. I'll try to make my thoughts line up on the page, instead of being jumbled in my head, before (like all brief glimpses) they disappear.

The key line of this book would be,
"Our greatest challenge in life is remembering who we really are. Life is a cycle of remembering and forgetting. Do you know who you are?"

We let our eyes off of who we are. "But take your eyes off the light and you'll drown in the darkness you see. Darkness, as well as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder." So often we create fears, we create darkness (there is plenty of darkness out there that we don't create however.) because we lose sight of who we are. But what strikes me almost more than that is how content I can be in that blindness.

Why do we forget? I am a child of God, forgiven, loved and redeemed. But why don't I live in this identity of love and grace? Because I forget. Instead I look to what the world is telling me. The world is trying to make us forget. We need to remember. Because it's worth everything. It's worth fighting for. They will try to steal our light, our joy, our identities. We need to remember who we are. Because it will change our lives if we do.

With the law, with the rules, we are constantly trying to fix ourselves, to become better, to become worthy. But it was already taken care of. By Jesus. On the cross. My boyfriend recently said, "Our identity is entirely rooted in what Jesus has done- once for all. No takebacks." If we believed that....we could stop trying to be good enough and finally, really, live. If we believed love, if we believed we could be that love and receive that love....Surrender conquers all.

"The truth that if we have eyes to see, we can see we are beautiful. We've been put right a long time ago. We've just forgotten that. There is no further need for correction and there's really nothing more to know."

Let's remember who we are. Let's remember our identity. And live with eyes wide open.

Deditio.