February 10, 2006 | Mama Smith

being thwarted

So most of you all know that Matthew, B & I just survived a pretty rocky couple of months with me working full-time, Matthew support raising, B trying to figure out what it meant to sleep…to just name a few things. We recently emerged from that intensity and now feel like we’re settling back into some normalcy and a slower pace again.

But you know that feeling you get, after having really sucky circumstances, and everything seems a little bit lighter and easier for a bit…then even though life feels like it’s “working” circumstantially again, it just feels blah? Like you’re missing out on the really good stuff somehow, even if you can’t put a finger on what that good stuff should be?

I think this must be part of living in a world deeply wounded by the fall. We’ll always be bleeding and not quite whole until Christ comes back. And we’ll always think there’s something out there, waiting to be discovered, to stitch up our wounds, making life better/easier/more exciting/more comfortable. A never-ending line of alluring lovers.

One author asks the question I’ve often mulled over, “Why did God curse Eve with lonliness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill ( even when life is going WELL )?...It seems unkind. Cruel, even.” She goes on to unwrap that in a way I’ve never thought about, but makes such sense to me.

“He did it to SAVE her. For we all know personally something in Eve’s heart shifted at the fall. Something sent its roots down deep into her soul – and ours – that mistrust of God’s heart, that resolution to find life on our own terms. So God has to THWART HER. In love, He has to block her attempts until, wounded and aching, she turns to Him and Him alone for rescue.”

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; She will look for them but not find them Hosea 2:6-7

Only then can we be allured by THE Lover, Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. Hosea 2:14

Stink. I hate realizing AGAIN that I want so many other things besides intimacy with Christ. And that it often takes going into the desert with him to get my distracted, unfaithful heart to be ravished by Him alone. I’d rather do ANYTHING some mornings after Brighton goes down for his first nap – wash the dishes, watch the Today show, clean up the bedroom – than sit down and just be with Christ. Whereas I will fight and whine and throw a fit to get time alone with Matthew. Or to get time by myself to go to the gym. Or to hang out with a friend. My own never-ending line of alluring lovers. No wonder life seems blah at times. I’ve bought – hook, line & sinker – that there’s something/someone that will feed this hunger I have to be loved/fall in love. Some beautiful place, some tender person, just something or someone I must have missed and need to find. Whether that’s “fixing” the people currently in my life to meet my needs or find something new to tease my fancies.

But thankfully, I will keep being thwarted by THE Lover of my soul, again and again, until I’m turned to Him and Him alone for rescue. As long and often as it takes this side of heaven.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be; let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wand’ring heart to thee. Prone to wander – Lord I feel it – prone to leave the God I love: Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.