Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about God and how my relationship with Him really is often like a wave ebbing and flowing from Great to sort of "eh." It was during this time that I thought about the feeling of having an arm go asleep (or leg, fingers, nose, etc. pick a part of the body). It was in this thought that it donned on me that my relationship with God was similar to being numb, but still alive.
When God is out of the picture in our lives or put on hold, when are connection to the source is strained we become numb, disconnected, unable to operate at the fullest, and able to dabble in the dangerous without immediately feeling the effects of sin. That is where I am at sometimes. When I am disconnected, even slightly from the source I often find myself heading towards my old "pet" sins that really destroy who I am and who Christ has created me to be. I become numb and unable to feel the pain and danger, unable to sense the encroaching tentacles of sin wrapping its arms around me and taking me down a path of destruction. It doesn't even have to look like I am going down, I could be "A" "OK" on the outside, have it all put together in most areas of my life, yet there are places in who I am that have the potential to be eroded away to nothing. For example: remember when your parents told you to "brush your teeth" when you were young, well they did that to help you keep your teeth and encourage habits of dental health, without it our teeth would just erode and rot away. I don't know if you know this but teeth are rather tough, they compose some of the hardest bones in your body. So when you think that you can take a little sin without brushing it off, when you think that you are strong enough to withstand a little dabbling in the "candy of life." Sin doesn't erode our lives all at once, but slowly over time... it sticks with you and has very real long lasting effects.
Numb: "deprived of the power of sensation" as my handy Mac dictionary tells me...
When we are hands, feet, or other appendages are numb it is only the really hard and painful stuff that gets our attention... Unfortunately the enemy often works with a long term plan for our destruction... nibbling away at us, tempting in the little things... breaking us down bit by bit, until there is little left but a shrivel of what we used to be... That's when it hits us... and it hits us hard... the little sins mature to enormous sins and begin to invade into every part of who we are until we walk around fully numb with real pain ever increasing trying to find restoration in yet even more sin...
BUT... there is something awesome about the power of God. Once we accept Him and acknowledge the necessity of change and turn toward obedience to Him, to health we are beginning our journey with Him.
Tingling... so what usually happens when we try to wake up a "numb" part of the body... we move it, shake it, hit it... ultimately we are trying to reconnect and speed the connection to the source, to gain access to blood.
That's the same thing that happens to us when we come to Christ... we gain access to the "Blood of Christ" we are reconnected to Him and are made fully alive... Often it is hard work and like most time when numbness goes it away and tingling happens pain and discomfort are the by products. This isn't to say that Salvation in Christ hurts, but sometimes major life change will hurt and take bold moves and breakthroughs to real change through Christ. Pain will happen, but it is only temporary pain.
Now we are restored back to what we were created to be, a fully alive part of the body of Christ. This brings me back to my original point. When I step away from Christ away from the source and seek out my own desires, wants, and needs, I am cut off and become numb. The Holy Spirit works in me and sometimes through the grace of God I get a holy kick in the rear end back towards health. And yeah, it tingles, and often hurts like heck because the reason I stay in sin is because I enjoy it too much to want to change... call it an addiction, an addiction to death. So as I move back towards Christ and through Him break the chains of bondage and gain "full" access to the source I am made whole, fully sensitive to Him, fully alive and able to function as a part of the Body of Christ.
Jesus uses similar agricultural language to describe the Kingdom of God... He cuts away the unproductive, dead parts of the Kingdom and throws them into the fire...
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be cut off from God... no amount of sin is even close to being worth that, not ever...
So maybe in your life you feel a little or a lot numb... I know I do sometimes... Let us partner with each other as we reconnect back to the source, back to Christ... Being Alive is so much better than numb...
So there you have it... "Numb but still Alive"
Blessings
