Harbor

      The life in Christ is to be a harbor; a safe haven from the sin, death, and destruction of this present age.  We are with Christ hidden in God.  Not just insulated from the world but rather victorious over it.  You may think, "well, I don't feel like I am victorious!" Or, "it doesn't look like I am winning over my circumstances."  Yet remember God has not called us to walk by feeling or even by sight; we are to live by faith in the revealed reality of our hiddenness and risenness in Christ in God. 
     Our life in Christ is meant to be a life of rest and confident expectancy.  Too much of our consciousness is invaded by past hurts, present offenses, and the fear of what could be.  Most people will not engage fully in relationships because they have been hurt, are being hurt, and fear it happening again.  The problem with any avoidance of life is also to neglect the life that Christ gives so freely.  To enjoy what He has bestowed upon us is to take risk; to reach out without seeing but knowing that He has done it already is not always easy.  Paul says that if God gave His own Son without caution will He not also with the Son freely give us all things?  And when we take harbor in this reality we can fully enjoy and see all those things He has done. 
    It is when we harbor ill feelings, grudges, fears, and prejudices that the good things He has given begin to blur.  Oh, they are still there; they are always there.  Our sight of them is obscured by nursing our pains and past struggles; we can't see the all things because our focus is on the pain.  For years we have had a hard time bringing suffering into a consistent theology.  Some have a conviction that we suffer because we have sinned; others are convinced it is to make us into stronger Christians.  I have come to realize that our focus is never the how's and why's of suffering but that our eyes are always fixed upon Jesus. 
    What if we didn't allow our hearts and minds to be weighted down with controversy? Would suffering be different if I didn't take the attitudes and opinions of others more important than the truth of God's word?  What if I didn't sit around trying to figure out "what the hell I did to get this pain," but instead realize that God has worked on my behalf and I will see His goodness in the land of the living.  What if I came to the understanding that God is not mad at me and I should not let anger keep me from fellowshipping with neighbor and loved one?  What we if refused to harbor unforgiveness, anger, malice, greed, and prejudice; but rather sailed into the harbor of the Son and rest, rest, rest?