A question was posed in “The Secret” at Perichoresis ; Why do we struggle to taste or see the depth in life, or the greatness and beauty in a child, or the amazing complexity of a flower?  Why can life for some be flat and bland regardless of huge efforts?  The book leads to divulging the secret ….. 

This is such a ‘now’ story for me as He revealed to me how much I had overlooked in my life, how much I had missed, how little I had tasted, how often I lived off the surface of the wealth that surrounded me. I was missing the depth and “life” of what was in front of my face.  But maybe I should back up a bit and divulge a few other truths He has shown me since.

He has been making real my identity in Him … how I look through the eyes of the One who made me.  He has told me I can’t disappoint Him because of His grace, that my life was created to share with Him {relationship} and is a response to who He is.  I am valued and have purpose because He made me {that way} therefore I do;  it isn’t the other way around … I do, work, strive  because I need to become or prove to myself and others, that I am valued, belong or have a purpose. The first way, recognising my value in Him is living in His Grace, the second of striving for my own value is living under the law.  Under the law, I spend my life and energy wholly trying to procure my needs of value, belong and purpose from others not realising that I HAVE THESE NEEDS MET ALREADY.   He told His son three times that “This is my Son, Whom I love; in Him I am well pleased!” We have the same inheritance … we are in Him.

From this place of Grace, from realising I don’t have to procure my own value, I find FREEDOM.  Freedom from having to meet my own essential needs like an addict frantic for her next fix.  My needs are met. It is finished by Him.  Done for me.  Who was it that said, “I was freed for freedoms sake.”  They were right.  I am freed to be me….. sounds like a great name for a blog hey? hmmmm. 

Now I can live sensitive to the desires He created in me which were made in His image anyway ….  direct from the Fathers heart.  I can now live freed from having to try and fill my own tank {which is impossible for me to do anyway} and have the time and energy to notice the people around me and respond to them with a response rooted in His goodness to me.  I am now free to initiate a celebration, a work of beauty or to manifest who He made me to be which ironically gives Him glory, reveals more of Him to those who are around me.  

I am free to shine like a star giving credit to it’s creator, like a work of art makes famous it’s artist. I am free to stand as a signpost pointing to the core of all existence, all that has substance, all that will ever find any satisfaction or fulfilment in my life. He has taken my broken life with bits missing {Him} and fixed me.  

My journey is now Him revealing to me His heart, His reactions, His purposes.  How He initiates and reacts.  See, I now have the time to hear and see and revel in these amazing revelations as my focus is off me and my eyes glued to Him {hmmm can I walk on water too} … not because I have to though, but because I want to.   To marinate in His wonder and substance is the first order of the day as I’ don’t need to strive to fix myself or elicit my own needs.

Sure, He is still renewing my mind from lies that have me walk into walls, pits and dog dirt but as He reveals those erroneous beliefs, it allows me to ask Him to show me the truth, show me why I believed a lie and it’s usually tied up in my previous ‘value procuring need’ which amazingly, no longer has the dramatic pull on my life.

So what does this have to do with the tasty, deep bits of life? Actually, I have to admit that I am feeling a bit like a fish out of water.  What I knew and was rotton but comfortable is now gone and CHANGE is taking it’s place …. Ahhhhh.  But that’s good!!!  {right?}  See, no longer is my day filled with goals and visions of the “making of myself” therefore I have the time, the headspace, the inclination and desire to see things as they are, to study them, to unpack them and to be blown away by them. God decluttered me BIG TIME.  Simplified even.  Life is emerging now with a deepening quality, a fresh substance a tastier palette which I find myself desiring, following, even chasing after.  

And the secret: Immanuel ~ God with us. 

“In Him we live and move and have our being”