Fanning The Flames Of Faith
Don't Pinch Yourself
Posted on Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:46 AM
I love the movie "The Matrix". It's in my top 5 favorite movies of all times. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen it. Hundreds and hundreds of times, if I were to venture a guess. I can speak the dialogue right along with the characters. There is one scene in the movie, after Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) had been captured by the agents and Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) told him about the previous version of the Matrix: Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. This speech struck me recently. I wonder if, as Christians, do we really know how to accept the good that God brings to our lives? Are we so accustomed to praying and praising when all hell is breaking loose around us, that we have lost the ability to actually accept and appreciate when heaven opens up over our heads. I'm not talking about when God brings us out of a situation. We have no problem rejoicing in that situation. I'm talking about when you get the truly unexpected, unearned, undeserved good thing in your life. Why do we question it? Why can't we accept it at face value? Are we like the humans in Agents Smith's speech , in that we keep trying to wake up from a dream when it's just *too* good? But aren't we to expect that "too good" thing at some point in this Christian walk? "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:3-4 Why do we question God doing exactly what His word speaks? Doesn't God say "Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it." Jeremiah 1:12 He says He will watch over his word to perform it. God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Numbers 23:19 Sometimes, just sometimes, all of this faith that we have means that we have to stop trying to wake up from God's gifts. *Especially* when He is sending you just what you have always wanted. YOU DESERVE THIS GOOD THING. Whatever this is. Trust and believe that God wants good for you. He even told you so. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive." Jeremiah 29:11-14 Stop pinching yourself. Stop trying to wake up. Stop running away from God's good thing. Stop questioning. Accept it and be grateful for it. He loves you!
In love, Mona