holding it back

For those of you happy few observing Lent by taking on a more intense immersion into the Word, today's Lenten collect will hold a special meaning ---

O Lord, you relieve our necessity out of the abundance of your great riches: Grant that we may accept with joy the salvation you bestow, and manifest it to all the world by the quality of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

How easy that seems and yet there is danger in it. Great risk. 

      Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,

      Nor speak anymore in His name.”

      But His word was in my heart like a burning fire

      Shut up in my bones;

      I was weary of holding it back,

      And I could not.

We love to simply forget we're Christians - at least for a little bit. From time to time it does feel wonderfully convenient. Perhaps we've met a beautiful woman whose heart we discover finds that Hume is beautiful. Perhaps we find ourselves only too happy to skip a Sunday morning because we just had to had that extra shot of Jäger at the bar to impress the guys. Perhaps one little click of the mouse on that seductive pop-up isn't all that bad - its a slow day and the wife is staying late at the office. Or perhaps we "lose" that annoying and frumpy job applicant's resume in File #13 (don't you just hate it when that happens?!)

It is so easy to become comfortable in living without the risk. It is easy to get by without speaking His name in public (and let alone, privately). In our politically correct world where sex, drugs, and rock n' roll are all the gospel most need, it is nice to view God from inside a small, airtight, locked, glass observatory space where, when we are personally good and ready, we can unlock the box and grab Him and His Word up.

But let me tell you - I would rather sacrifice a few good feelings at the cusps than the deep pitted feelings that creep up in the wake of that false good. But we are a proud people and even when our transgressions convict us and blare like an airhorn three inches from our face, we put our heads on, offer a half-hearted "Sorry, Lord" and repeat within two weeks. It's time to do more.

It's embarrassing and this Lent, we must move ourselves to change. It is time to become uncomfortable, take risks, and live like men. Become dangerous. Feed upon the risk.  Just as Jeremiah says if we bottle up the Word in our hearts It "rages like a burning fire...", so John Wesley challenges us that if we live for the passion of the Gospel, "people will come to watch you burn."

GET THE TORCHES.