Me, Myself and I....The Trinity of Stupidity

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.--Isaiah 6:1

 Isaiah saw the Lord after the death of King Uzziah. Uzziah was a popular and powerful king. The people of Judah trusted him to keep them safe and secure. I am sure they were both saddened and concerned when he died.  This is when, however, that Isaiah received his life changing vision from the Lord and when he began his ministry to the people of Judah.  Maybe Isaiah had been trusting in Uzziah rather than God and it took Uzziah's death for Isaiah to see that it was the Lord, not Uzziah on the throne.  Kings change but God is always on His throne. He is in perfect control of all.  I (we) forget this. 

God  is concerned for our spiritual well being and sometimes that requires emptying our lives of things that block our view of who He is.  God has brought trials into my life to purify it of  those things that obstruct my view of who He is.   My biggest obstacle, however, to God is still with me.  The biggest obstacle between me and my God is me, myself and I.  Lloyd Pulley calls it the trinity of stupidity.  My bad attitudes, my pride, my selfishness, my "issues", my desires...me...me...me. That is what gets in my way. With each trial He increases and I decrease BUT the nearer I draw to Him the more I see how desperately wicked I am.   I pray for that moment by moment dying to myself so that I can live for Him.  I fail so miserably...so often getting caught up in that snowball rolling down the hill that is me.  Calvary love is so different...it sacrifices and thinks on others.  As for me...my thoughts are mostly on me and if they are on others, I am pretty sure most of the time it is how they relate to...you know...me.  

I cry out with Paul...O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death.   I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

"In Paul's day, the sentence of a man convicted of first-degree murder could be to be tied to the body of his victim. Often, the stench alone would kill the murderer. It is possibly this Roman practice to which Paul is referring when he cries, "Who will free me from the failures, shortcomings, and sinful tendencies I'm forced to drag behind me wherever I go?"

See...now I remember. In me nothing good dwells.  It is about Him.  He is the only One who can deliver me from this body of death.   I can walk in newness of life because He has freed me from the penalty and the power of sin.  I am no longer a slave of the Enemy...I am a bond servant of Jesus Christ and am free to obey His perfect law of liberty. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. My job is just to surrender...the battle is His.  Yes my body is dying, but He renews and strengthens my inward man daily.  The same Lord that Isaiah saw on the throne high and lifted up is the same Lord that dwells inside my heart.  I forget.  I can put me aside and love those around me with His love by His Spirit who dwells inside me. I love what Corrie Ten Boom says:

"It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts." 

Love

Mom