I saw myself playing with danger, I entertained it for a moment, a series of moments if I’m honest, I twisted it this way and that, tried it on for size in as many different ways as what I could, came up with an endless list of reasons, ideas, ways I could make it okay, knowing every last one of them was by MY way not God’s and yet still entertaining, entertaining, entertaining, entertaining, wishing, wanting, wondering, craving, and maybe most of all, submitted to a desperation within me which told me it’s not as though I’d be able to resist ANYWAY.
I saw myself through every different lens I could conceive of, rose coloured glasses? I had ’em in every colour! And besides … I could always repent … keep repenting … repent again … but maybe it wasn’t even necessary? Maybe there was a line I could walk? Maybe this was how God was going to use me, aha; that’s it!
I saw myself playing with danger and I LIKED it, I wanted it, I certainly wanted to justify it, and I had all the legalese you can think of to back it up; what an argument I’d make!
“Your Honour it was the RIGHT thing to do, because otherwise I would never have / look how it led to this, or that, wouldn’t God want me to, and if I didn’t at least allow for this then I was being too black and white anyway; not even giving God room to move!”
I saw myself playing with danger.
And whilst it was desirous … fascinating … magnetic … and many of the considerings I came up with were really very very, well … considerable …
I knew it was danger.
I knew it was danger.
I knew it was danger.
I KNEW it was danger.
And yet I spent moment after moment … thought life after thought life … imagination after imagination … and (perhaps most sorrowful of all in THIS moment) … breath after breath in which I could have been growing in the Lord in the secret place instead –
entertaining it.
Can I tell you what a difficult wrestle it felt, to wrangle myself back away from walking slowly but surely down a slippery path of ‘maybe it’s okay?’
No need to be coy, I’ll tell you what I was entertaining:
1) Maybe I can date / meet up with / consider somebody who is not necessarily (ahem) fully on fire for Jesus, Holy Spirit led, and living with God as his ABSOLUTE centre, and –
2) Maybe I can keep doing just these few things that KAT thinks are a good idea in business, because surely God meant …
I’m sure there are other areas I’ve played with danger! But these are what I speak of today, and where God by His grace has brought me through the desert of temptation and SELF and once more into the sweetness of His plans for me.
The truth is I found it excruciatingly difficult, in both of these areas, for clearly very different reasons, to stop seeing myself playing with danger.
In the first area I did not actually DO so (beyond a couple texts and one coffee meet up / ‘inspection’).
In the second area I absolutely did do so, and did a fine job of convincing myself … ah my FLESH … that I was not doing so.
Oh, what a PAINFUL thing it was though, to pull away from each.
Impossible! Hence why I continued to vision … ponder … wonder … imagine … and argue relentlessly for a possibility I already knew I did not want.
And therein lies the clue. In those last few words. For you who is right now playing with danger. Seeing yourself doing so. And, if you’re honest, WANTING to see yourself doing so further. Wanting to at least see, well … how far you can see!
The clue is:
You DON’T want to.
Your identity in Christ absolutely DOES NOT WANT anything other than what He wants.
That new spirit He’s put in you? Wants righteousness. Purity. And works of the spirit not the flesh. The full YES to a calling which will never be fully explicable to man including self and yet,
simply,
IS.
Oh, but the flesh.
Yes, OH BUT THE FLESH.
Will we brutalise our flesh for being flesh? Well in fact, scripturally, we should subdue it! Oh flesh be QUIET in Jesus Name!
But no,
we cannot condition or demand or persuade our flesh to not be flesh.
And so we cannot find a way OUT of what our flesh wants … or a way to not desire danger IN it … by operating IN it.
I saw myself playing with danger.
I entertained it a lot.
Surely it wasn’t so bad?!
And then?
I asked God to help me. I cried out to Him desperately. “LORD I CAN’T DO THIS!” Save me once more from myself, I want what you want, help me help me help me help me; show me the way, thank you that you do and you ARE the way!”
I saw myself playing with danger.
What an ATTRACTIVE vision it was.
And then I remembered that God is God beyond the biggest of our struggled, and I turned once more to Him and EXPECTED HIM TO BE GOD.
“I can’t do this God. But you can. And I believe you will. I expect your help. And I don’t want to agree for a second longer with anything that derails me from my destiny in you, or in any way subdues it”.
I saw myself playing with danger.
I played it right out.
I saw the terribleness, truly, of what it would lead to.
I bit by bit chose into the imagination of the REALITY of all it would cost me.
The counterfeit life.
Holy Spirit subdued.
The product,
of my own way,
manifest.
I looked down the barrel of saying yes to fleshly desire NOW,
and calculated, through my limited view, the expanded view of what would it mean.
Oh,
DANGER –
what a lie it is to see you as fun.
I saw myself playing with danger.
And then?
I turned once more and saw God.
I saw the fullness of who I am in Him.
I looked to scripture and saw the reality – the horrifying reality – of what choosing less of Him would mean, both on this earth and beyond.
I rubbed my face in it deliberately.
Reminded myself I have permission, I have free will, to choose what I choose.
And then I chose God again.
I chose God again.
And I choose God again.
Did this make my fleshly desires go away? I can tell you it subdued them dramatically, instantaneously. But only when I called on HIS strength in me not my own.
If you are looking to your flesh to save you from your flesh …
and the truth is you don’t really want to look away right now …
can I encourage you today to simply turn and look full on at God anyway?
I saw myself playing with danger.
And then?
I saw myself as God sees me.
And I said yes.
Kat
PS.
As Far As the Eye Can See is finally underway.
30 days, Holy Spirit led, all the way into and beyond the visions He has for you now.
Donation only.
