IN THE SECRET

 

It's a Chris Tomlin Song: In The Secret. It's an oldie but a goody.

 

These are some of my favorite lyrics ever, especially this time of night, when the world is quiet and it seems and feels like I get God all to myself.

 

I especially love strumming it on my guitar in the darkness at 2:00 am as I feel His love echo through the vibrations in the guitar's body back to me. As if in that moment His love is finally tangible. I can almost feel it harmonize with my soul.

 

But it isn't always like this, is it? It is actually rarely like that. Insomnia is almost never associated with perfect moments with God. It's those young hours of the morning that we almost fear the most, right? I know I do.

 

How many more times can I watch 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, Gilmore Girls, Arrested Development, Phineas And Ferb, Scrubs, The Disney Channel, Chuck, and/or listen to the same music and read the same books, and diddle time away on my iPad for hours until I'm sick of it all and bored out of my mind, simply from tying to escape my mind?

 

Escape my mind. If only it were that easy.

 

It's in those moments, in the quiet, in the secret, left alone with one of the scariest places and things we can think of: our minds, that we learn the most, the truth, about who we are and who we want to be.

 

We are shown just how much darkness and how much light we are made up of. We finally can't escape ourselves, which we spend all day trying to do, and our inner self isn't what we pretend it to be. We are lonely, neurotic, whiny, spoiled, selfish, impatient, fleshy beings and we do all we can to pretend to others, to God, and to ourselves, that we aren't. But silence screams the truth. And the truth sucks.

 

We've all been there, haven't we? Wide awake at 3 in the morning, suddenly and horribly alone in the darkness. Aware of our loneliness, aware of our fears, aware of our secrets, all of which seem to almost ravenously feed off the silence and shadows of our bedroom walls, rapidly growing into the beast of a thing we know lives inside our chests somewhere, the beast we try to hide every moment of every day. But the beast lives and thrives in the pitch black of night, is empowered by screaming silence, strengthened by exhausted boredom, and ubiquitous in insomnia. It's the awareness of self that can be the most disheartening, the most destructive.

 

Aware. That's what Donald Miller believes happened at The Fall: we became aware of ourselves and thus dustinguished and disconnected ourselves from God, to become separate from Him. He could no longer speak Truth into our lives and beliefs. Instead we wanted to know it all. And "it all" is just too much.

 

"It all", with the Devil's plan working well, was/is lies, barely rooted in truth, but truth enough to tear us even farther from Him. Lies being fed into the mouth of the beast inside. Lies encouraging the flesh to control us. We know too much, are overwhelmed with information, which we can't fully understand or handle because we are meer humans, and that leads us into the shadow of death, or shadows, which we fear and are aware we may never escape, unless we somehow change and fight the lies. Unless we truly believe there is nothing to fear for He is with us.

 

It's just at 3 am "it all" is too much. How do we override all that information? How do we stop it? How do we overcome it? Is any of that even possible?! Do we have a choice when the darkness falls and awakes the animal, or ID, inside at random hours in the middle of the night? That dumb craeture that can't see the whole picture or find a way to notice God is in fact there with us. Do we have a choice, when we feel more alone and despondent than ever, to overcome the lies? Can we chose to seek light while engrossed by the shadows of night?

 

Yes!

 

I know there are times that seems crazy. If not all the time. It sounds crazy even to me! I even hate typing this right now! If you had only seen how hopeless I felt just last night! How I agonized all night in pain and did nothing about it but put the TV on quietly in the background to distract my broken loop of selfish, whiny, miserable, and horrible thoughts--but the ever nagging, unrelenting imp of the perverse just wouldn't give up last night...if you knew all that, the truth, my truth, you would know I am the biggest hypocrite in the world! But what writer isn't?! You would know I can't practice what I preach. Never on a regualr basis. And please don't ever assume that I can or do, because it just ins't true. I need what I write just as much, if not more than all of you...but does that really mean I should stop preaching it? To you? To myself? To others?

 

Some nights we feel there is literally nothing we can do to feel better. I know that and have lived that and have explained that. Some nights the idea of turning our attention to God instead of lonliness, pain, fatigue, despair, fear and minds screaming lies into our hearts seems like the most impossible thing in the world. But, despite the lies trying to convince us we can't escape those moments or thoughts or feelings, the same moments and thoughts and feelings I feel every night, no matter what the darkness tries to make us believe, we can stop it. We can turn towards God's light and Truth. No matter how much information is overloading us. No matter how many "half" truths decieve us. No matter how easy it is to believe the darkness, we can change how the rest of our sleepless nights turn out.

 

It's hard! It goes against all the bad habits we've built over the years! Trust me, I know that! It is so much easier for us to slip into depression than it is to find our way into joy. I've had years of despondence I thought I would never escape! This world does "belong" to the Devil....and our sentiments and thoughts definitely attest to that.

 

But we don't! We belong to God! And if we fight our human nature, and focus on Him and His light and His Truth, and follow our souls, that electrical energy that is magnetized to Him, perhaps we can bypass our flesh and let our souls guide the way.

 

That time of night you do have a choice: you can either feel you are all alone and drown in that lie, or you can bask in the Truth of His presence. It's always a choice. I forget that way too often. Especially lately.

 

But once I think this song, think the words consciously, sing the lyrics, strum them, the whole night can change. It's almost instantaneous, but some nights it does take a lot longer. But still, I can walk towards the light and away from my own darkness. I have to fight for it at first, and I mean fight. But it soon feels natural and easy. I just remind myself I want to know Him more, not myself. It can be almost that simple, it really can. Just

 

Change Your Perspective!

 

Because He is there, in the secret, in the quiet place. In the stillness He is there. In the secret, in the quiet hour, wait for Him, only for Him.

 

Shake the lies out of your soul!

Shake the dust that's settled around it!

Shake the tears off your cheeks!

Shake yourself into His presence!

 

Stop noticing who isn't there (like friends, family, co-workers, your boyfriend or husband or wife) and remember He is. And He wants to know you more. It's time we show Him we feel the same way.

 

In the secret, in those lonely, dark hours of hopelessness, choose God. Remember His Truths. Seek Him out. Stop wallowing. Stop complaining. Stop believing there is nothing you/we can do. Look around... Hear how quiet it is... Feel how secret that moment is... and invite God into it with you.

 

 

 

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