Devotion 369 - Threshold

Grandpa sat back quiet.  He is often quiet.  I believe we reach a certain threshold in life where what has come before transitions to thoughts of what is to come.

 Life, no matter our age is a series of thresholds.

We move subtly from childhood to adulthood.  We leave behind carefree and embrace caution.  Money, time, actions and reactions are now managed and measured.  Something is left behind.

My husband, kids and I watched a movie with Grandpa.  I was categorically grateful I had seen the movie once before.  So fascinated by it, I had researched the truth behind the characters and the moments in history.  The drama occurred over fifty years ago. 

It intrigued my dad.  I watched how his quiet became queries.  Names awoke memories, drama jarred headlines and his words framed history with real life and real fears.  This is my father, always, relentlessly on a quest to learn.  I hope I am like him when I grow up.

For just a few minutes the perpetual student becomes teacher and he shared his memories of the cold war, the world war and the war he fights now, the war on loneliness.

He has questioned why he has been left behind.  Why he has yet to cross his threshold. The movie continued, the spies are surrendered.  A trade of sorts occurs and the perceived criminals cross the threshold from captivity to freedom.

In the equation, the Americans seem to have the more preferable outcome.  It seems right and almost holy.  Do we not stand for freedom and wave the flag of all that is good about democracy?

Why then as believers do we fear the threshold of freedom and stand against the very idea of surrender?

From cover to cover, the Word teaches the very heart of something we often fail to grasp:   to get we must give, to live we must die, to find freedom, we must surrender.

Yet crossing over means leaving a piece of us behind.

The gospel of grace flies in the face of our American pride. We can and do almost everything often without the help and support of anyone but our dreams and our drive.

To surrender anything appears weak and lacking self control, thus we grasp with white knuckle strength the abilities built by our force, never realizing it is our weaknesses that set us apart.

Our weaknesses reveal the parts of us only God can fill, therefore we hide them.  We hide them from conversation and we hide them from exhibition.  We are complete onto ourselves.  We can solve any problem, cure any ailment, and redesign any flaw.

We worry and fret about how things look so we paint over the mistakes with cover girl and photo shop until our lives resemble what we hope people will believe we are.

But then reality chases us and we find ourselves teetering on the threshold of something we cannot maintain.  We stand at the threshold of authenticity. 

The older generation, my dad’s generation gets it.  The quiet I so envy in him is the reflection and realization of what is important and what sustains.

The race is nearing its end, so the pace is measured.  It is not frantic but focused.  It is not noisy but quiet.  It is surrendered to what matters.

It is leaving behind the captivity of pride for the freedom of trust. It is weakness beautified by eternal hope.

I want to grasp what he has.  I want to learn early and not too late that balance in life is fallacy.  It is not giving God part, but whole. 

I no longer want to fly the flag of self sufficiency but reliance on the Creator that made me beautifully flawed.

I cannot do it all.  I cannot have it all.  I cannot know it all.  I can only embrace and testify to what I am, freed by the realization of being flawed. 

By offering up my empty, I am filled.

I cross the threshold of fear and find freedom.

 

Surrender your heart to God, turn to him in prayer, and give up your sins-even those you do in secret.Then you won't be ashamed; you will be confident and fearless. 

 Job 11:13-15