Queen Kristin: dethroned.

I have been actively poking at and experimenting in the struggles and triumphs of the with God life. I explained last time about how hurry is frequently and tragically the substitute for God in my own experience. Hurry is a common culprit of life emerged in the lavished grace of God.

And here, my friends, is the second culprit. It’s called the ‘with me’ life. I have found in the recent weeks that my brain is constantly centered around, conscious of and attending to the will of someone. Ideally, in life eternal, that someone should be and would be my creator: the loving God of the universe, whom spoke in light and deemed me worthy of breath. But in all irony and sad contrast, the person whom my thoughts and actions attract back to is… me. Creator of nothing, covered in darkness and ignorant of breath except if it is in need of freshening up with a mint or chewing gum.

There is a little kingdom of the temporary that I rule over. In this kingdom, life is about me. My wants. My desires. My needs. Me. I am an expert of operating in this kingdom. In this land, I fight for control, I nod my head in approval of my self-sufficiency, and I parade around in invisible garments of fulfillment, productiveness, and contentment, much like the emperor in his new clothes. I am often under the impression that I have it all figured out, or in a momentary slip of control, I will quickly find the way back to the reins. This is how our world works. It’s how it operates. And it’s scary because it’s fake. It’s invisible. It’s embarrassing.

True reality reveals one true kingdom, with a God that is so above us that he is without need. Talk about self-sufficiency! He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need love, or honor or glory from us. He has all the glory the universe could offer, because he created glory. He has love that’s deeper than the vastest ocean because his breath first spoke it. He needs nothing. He is one hundred percent without necessity, and yet, he wants us. He desperately, achingly wants the hearts that he created to want him back. So, like any good-hearted Christian out there, I claim I want him back. I sing in church about my desire for him above all else. But do I need him? Do I live in a way that demands an all-out frantic need for my savior? Or am I proud of my naïve façade of self-sufficiency? Every single time I place myself back on the throne of my life, my conscious need for God dies a little bit. A life with… me? Is this broken, shaken, temporary girl truly the ruler of all that is?

A life with God requires an accurate view of his grandness and majesty. In turn, it means mandatory head tilts towards my own frailty and inability. A life with God is more than stating once that God is on the throne. With God life means actively, repetitively, dethroning myself day in and day out. A life with God means falling to my knees, overwhelmed by my thirst and fainting need of the God that will never truly need me. It means sitting in the mysteriously impossible truth that he still wants me. Rulers need not apply. There is but one kingdom to be sought, and may that kingdom come.