If Only We Knew And Cared (What God Was Thinking)

From Webster.com

Confuse:

1. To destroy the self-possession or self-confidence of: abash
2. To bring to ruin
3. To make indistinct: blur
4. To mix indiscriminately: jumble
5. To fail to differentiate from an often similar or related other (confuse money with comfort)

From Beloved by Toni Morrison (page 7)

"You looking good."

"Devil's confusion. He lets me look good as long as I feel bad." He looked at her and the word "bad" took on another meaning.

From Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1 lines 45-50)

"Read on this book (of prayers) that show of an exercise may color your loneliness. --We are oft to blame in this, 'tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself."

From Keys To The Deeper Life by A.W. Tozer (page 50)

"A world of confusion has surrounded this truth...like a mist [that] lies upon a mountain in stormy weather...This confusion has not come by accident. An enemy has done this. Satan knows that Spiritless evangelicalism (or faith) is as deadly as Modernism or heresy, and he has done everything in his power to prevent us from enjoying our true Christian heritage."

What else do we confuse? I think we confuse looking Christian from being Christian. Tozer says something like we confuse theology with an actual relationship with God, the Person (page 31, Keys...). Knowing about God and knowing God are two different things. We confuse looking good with being good. We sugar over evil with appearances. Christian looking people and Christian people are confused all the time. Jesus would call us white-washed tombs. Clean on the outside, dirty on the inside. Like cleaning the outside of the cup before we clean the inside. I want to clean the inside. I am now, I guess. Well, trying anyways. It's quite dirty in here to tell you the truth. Years of muck stuck to the underneath of my skin.

I was confused to tell you the truth. I thought I was Christian because I called myself Christian. Because I was raised in a Christian home. Because I had a bunch of stuff memorized about God, because I ownded a Bible, had a fish sticker thing on my car, whatever...but I didn't know God personally. I am not sure I really do now actually. I try, which is different from the old me. But I am really not quite sure I know Him all that well personally, from experience with Him every day.

I still am confused I guess. And I am not sure I am confused because I am not who God wants me to be, because I am not experiencing a relationship with Him (you know, like every other relationship, like with my parents, is that the kind of relationship I have with Him), or if the Devil is successful here, or a little of both. Am I cleaning myself out, at all? If so, it is taking a really long time. I don't think I will ever feel clean on the inside, not while living on earth, in Satan's world. And then I wonder, am I clean, it is just the Devil who won't let me feel this way. Is trying to confuse how I feel about my relationship with God, with Christ? Am I dirty, or is he just making me feel that way? I am cleaner, I really am, but will he ever let me feel clean. If not, that may not be bad, persay, but I do feel like it limits how I approach God...somehow. It changes our relationship, somehow, the confusion. And that is horrible.

At least I know I wasn't necessarily Christian before. At least I know that and am trying to do something about it. At least I know that I didn't know Him and I want to spend all my days knowing Him. Seeking Him. Being who He wants me to be. Being Christian instead of it just looking like I am. Cleaning out the muck under my skin and not giving a crap, or trying to, about the outside. All that matters is the inside that God can see.

Shakespeare says we are to blame though, for getting lost in and following the confusion. Where we care what the world thinks more than we care what God thinks. And we do; you have to admit it. You have to admit you care what the world thinks more than you care what God thinks. If you didn't you wouldn't be wearing certain clothes, or look in a mirror, or brush or style your hair, or wear makeup or perfume or buy certain brands, or any of it. If we really cared what God thinks more than the world, we would not be who we are, we would be Godly. We would be monks or nuns or something. We would have so many Mother Theresa's we wouldn't know all of their names. We totally care more about what the world thinks about us; looking at my actions I know I do. And that is scary. Deadly scary. Terrifying. And it has infinite consequences.

This really is the prince of darkness's world. It really is. He does well to confuse us. We would do well to be still, quiet, away from people, this world, away from mirrors of any kind, away from tv and magazines, away from the media; we would do well to be with God; we would do well to experience Him and not just know about Him; we would do well to hang out with Him, to seek Him; we would do well to remember who is God. We would do well to know and care what God was thinking more than anything else.