It seems pretty obvious to me that we cannot fix ourselves, for our solutions come from the same wounded hearts and minds as the illness. If we don't really need a Redeemer from heaven, then God wasted His time sending Jesus to the earth. If we could do it ourselves, how many of us would have discovered that in our efforts to help ourselves? I know that I personally tried everything I knew to help myself -- and the problem was that I had to escape entirely from the world and the situations I was in to find peace. The Buddha taught that way as a solution for mankind's ills, but that was not the way of Jesus. In fact, He taught the Apostles that they were "in" the world, but not "of" the world.
I think, and Paul corroborates my thought, that we need to remain where we are, in the real-life situations we find ourselves, and redeem those situations through the Spirit of God working in us and through us. We might "escape" temporarily in order to find rest and peace for our souls, but as Hannah Hunnard's Hinds Feet on High Places illustrates so beautifully, once we are strong and healed (though still somewhat wounded), we are sent back to the very situations that wounded us originally.
Jesus told us to "Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." Even a child can see the apparent contradiction between our human imperfection and the Divine perfection; even a child knows that we will never live up to Jesus' command. So was He dreaming? Was He exaggerating for effect? Was He saying, "Keep trying, even though it's impossible?"
Once we understand the operation of the Holy Spirit on our essential woundedness, we can finally understand Jesus' words. In the beginning, the Spirit and the Word of God hovered/ brooded over the initial chaos and darkness of the world -- the abyss, the unformed matter: LIGHT! BE! The Word and the Spirit lept into the darkness-- and Light was! And the abyss began slowly to take form, order, shape, and beauty -- harmony, rhythm, and truth.
It is the same with our souls. The Spirit of God hovers over our woundedness, grieving, brooding. And the Word leaps forth from the mouth of God: LIGHT! BE! Light enters our souls, and the healing begins. The darkness is pushed back -- notice it does not entirely disappear, but is only pushed back by the entrance of LIGHT. And slowly, slowly, eons go by, but the Light continues to push back the darkness in our souls. And dry ground appears where once we were drowning in sorrow and sin:
The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called to the Lord'
I cried to my God for help.....
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me....
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me (Ps. 18).
Of course, our "rescue" cannot stop with being drawn out of deep waters that threaten to engulf us.
Once we give God an inch, He will always take the mile. Like a good Father, He delights in our first baby steps, but He will not stop caring and guiding us even when we walk on our own. He will not stop bringing us to His own Perfection. He says, "If you will let me, I will make you perfect. Nothing else will do. If you choose, you can push Me away -- but as long as you allow Me in your life, I will continue creating, redeeming, sanctifying, leading, guiding, teaching, filling you with My own Spirit. I will never rest, nor will I allow you to rest, until you are perfect, until I am as pleased with you as I am with My own Son. I will do nothing less."
If we do not resist Him, He will make us perfect. An artist does not stop half-way with his creation, thinking it is 'good enough.' Nor does a composer write half a symphony. A mother never stops being a mother, even though her children wish she would 'back off.' If we do not tell the Spirit of God to 'back away,' He will continue in us the work He has started--and His work, as we see from the Creation, is marvelous to behold!
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