Stripped

“Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”

Job 7:13-16
“When I think my bed will comfort me 
   and my couch will ease my complaint, 
even then you frighten me with dreams 
   and terrify me with visions, 
so that I prefer strangling and death, 
   rather than this body of mine. 
I despise my life; I would not live forever. 
   Let me alone; my days have no meaning.”

Job hits the nail right on the head. So many times our places of comfort and complacency offer us no rest. We find ourselves in a place in life where the sun is shining all the time. The problems of life seem to be completely non existent. Life is golden. Everything seems to be going right and looking up. This is the type of life that when we are living it we lose sight of our dependence on God. God will sometimes use situations to rock the very foundation we walk on as a tsunami to a vacation destination. An abrupt stoppage in the midst of our euphoria that we call perfection, when truly we do not realize that we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by one of the most dangerous situations for a Christian. A comfortable, complacent position is not one that is acceptable for a Christian.

For a short period of time i lived in a small Texas town outside of Dallas on a ranch. One of the duties i had during this time was to shear the llamas. Llamas are in themselves very elusive and sketchy creatures. You have to chase them down, corner them, grab hold of them by the neck and lead them to the barn. Once you are at the barn you have to force them to their knees and hold them down to shear all of the fur off of their bodies. They completely hate and despise this when in all actuality it is for their own good. The summers are too hot in Texas for a llama to keep their winter/spring coat. The unnecessary things need to be removed and stripped from their bodies so that they can be healthy and able to continue their daily lives as. The fur that is removed is not just discarded but has a purpose on the ranch whether to sell or even use as stuffing or a deterrent for enemies along the outlying areas of the ranch. This shearing time is not just a painful time for the llama but is also one for the cowboy as well. It can be frustrating just catching the llama because in the back of the cowboys mind he knows the entire purpose for this shearing. Watching the animal squirm and squeal once on its knees because it thinks its in danger wrenches the cowboy’s heart. He loves for the animal and only wants to see it healthy and useful. And once the animal is naked and the fur is stripped away there is a sense of relief in both the animal and cowboys mind that all the unnecessary weight and fur has been released and removed from the animal, even when the animal had no faith in the cowboys knowledge of what was best for them.

In our Christian walks we are so many times like that llama. We have become complacent with the “unnecessary fur” that we carry around on a daily basis. It brings us a sense of comfort as well as safety knowing that this will definitely shield us from the outside elements as well as the pain that may come our way. In this complacent state God wants us to be free of that idea of trusting in ourselves. We think that this is ok, that this whole idea is good. We run away from anything that we find or even see as uncomfortable or outside of normality in our own lives. We try escape situations that we know are going to force us to grow up spiritually as well as emotionally. God has to sometimes wrangle us by the necks and bring us to our knees to remove and strip away all the things that are holding us back, weighing us down, and are unnecessary in our lives. When are we going to get to the point where we can be comfortable in this pruning and refining process in our own life.
I have experienced this several times in my own life. I have experienced a variety of times that feeling of being taken out of my element of comfort and placed into a new situation where God has to remove some of the negative things out of my own life. It has not always been sin. This moment of pruning in my own life is definitely a necessary one. Every distraction that i have held onto and used to weasel my way out of uncomfortable situations has been removed. I am single, living alone in an apartment that has no internet, no television, and no cell phone service. I am living in an area where i knew one family coming down here. I stuck out like a sore thumb and was completely unprepared for what i would experience in such a short time as three months. But looking back, it was the stripping away of all this that i found the most value in. I found the need to rely on God to get me through my day. Every breath, every drop of energy, every word that i issue out of my mouth must come from my heavenly Father and supplier.

Without him ever present in our lives we are nothing but a pointless object, wearing ourselves out as we carry around all the unnecessary weight in our lives. If can bring ourselves to the position of humility as well as take that step of our faith and submit ourselves to the author and finisher of perfection we would see a drastic change. I wonder sometimes if we even realize what could be in our own lives. Are we so stuck on this idea of our sinful state that we have become comfortable with wallowing in our own pit of filth? Or is it fear that drives us to insanity and back as we search for a way out of this mess we lay in? We need to be able to give up what we think is good to chase after and obtain that which is great in God.

Whatever it truly is we need to realize that a stripping away of that fur in our life needs to take place on a daily basis.