Masquerade

You are a hypocrite and a liar. Your days are spent dancing around in life, wearing whatever mask fits for the occasion. To your Christian friends, your a bible reading, in depth praying, Christ following, believer. To your unchristian friends you are whatever they want you to be. Maybe you have a foul mouth or you drink, or smoke too much. Maybe you like dirty movies and things with lots of violence and gore.

When no one is looking you maybe sneak a little look at porn, after all ... its not that bad, and everyone does. Your bible lies unused gathering dust, and dirt, and possibly bugs. You have a million reasons not to read it, and they are all good ones, and the only real prayer you do is the ones before meals, in public where everyone can see, and possibly the "now I lay me down to sleep..." one that you fall asleep saying at night after you have tucked your kids into bed. Secretly you long to abandon your life, or you dream up another one, one where you are rich, have a nice house, and nice cars and where God has no say so over what you do and how you live.

But the reality you face day after day, as you switch from mask to mask, doing whatever dance comes next is that you are loaded with guilt, fear, sadness and possibly anger. You get angry at God because he doesn't change your situation, but really this is all you and the choices you have made. You get angry at God when he does change your situation, because he didn't do things exactly the way you planned them.

On the inside you know something is very, very, very wrong, but you can't place your finger on it. Maybe it's your past coming to haunt you, maybe its your dissatisfaction with your marriage, your house, your life, or maybe its something deeper. But we don't want to go there.... we don't want to go deeper. We don't want to actually take one little finger and point it at our self and admit for once " I am what is wrong with my life and myself."

"I am everyday becoming the person I hate in everyone else, everyday slipping farther and farther from the reality that God is, and was and always will be and his love which encompasses everything is not enough. I reject that love because I don't understand it, or him or his stupid laws which were really put in place to protect me."

"I whine about the lack of good I see in the world, all the while realizing that I have something to do with the lack of it, and everything that is wrong with me is someone else's fault. Surely not mine. Surely it has to do with the abuse I suffered as a child, the father who was never home, the lack of money i have now, or the husband/wife who doesn't pay enough attention to me. Surely... surely.... there is someone who can take the blame for all of this bad instead of me?"




Perhaps you do the things you do because you want to.




Genesis 6:5
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.




Perhaps you blame everyone who hurt you in your life because you dont want to take accountability that even though those things happened, God could allow that pain to do some very wonderful things in this world. A world that is full of pain and sadness and needs to see that we are all broken, we are all trying to find our way to wholeness.




Psalm 34:18
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.




Perhaps you are content with your broken state, and making the right decisions means acknowledging that there is a right decision that can be made. Even if you are the victim of an evil thing that was done.




Jeremiah 3:13
Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the LORD your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.




So we live like this day after day, given over to our desire, our own lack of action to do what is right and good, and we cater to our desires and wounds. Making excuses for everything we do, whether there is an excuse to be made or not. We strike God from our life, our living, and our homes and even our churches so that we can do what makes us feel right, and better about ourselves. The only thing wrong with that, is that he is the only one that can make everything right, and if we keep pushing him out, and ignoring him....




Romans 1:28
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.




He will let us do whatever we want, and there will be no healing for brokenness, no relief for guilt, and no clarity for trouble. We will live in a constant spin cycle of lies, anguish and guilt. Only in acknowledging our shortcomings, and the choices we have made, and handing that over to God can there be freedom from this cycle.




Romans 8:21
that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.




I know that God does not want us to live in sadness, every day feeling like we have failed worst than the one before. That would be the enemy...




John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.




They meaning us... so how many dances will I do, how many masks will I wear and how many times will I change my costume before this becomes a reality?