building a new well

If you have dabbled in spiritual maturity, there's a good chance you find yourself disregarding the merit of renewing your covenant with God. I know that I for one can play the cynic concerning the mountaintop experience. I watch the camp meeting altar calls and the campus revival services, and I think to myself, "Oh, that's cute; they think they're being sincere." This coming from the same boy who once looked at the adults in disgust while they vicariously fed on our spiritual zeal.

Pride takes on many forms. One of the most debilitating comes from determining how God should move. Sure, the natural progression of spiritual wisdom and maturity offers a welcome stability to the peaks and valleys we once knew. But sometimes the arrogance of our stability blinds us to the gradual downward slope in which we have been slipping.

My moods once created such a natural transition from ecstasy to defeat that I'm not quick to resign to the need for personal revival. The enemy dissuades extreme behavior through a cunning dialogue in my head:

"Don't you know that you're done with all that? Sure, it was fun to run to the altar with your teenage buddies. But you're grown now. And you're alone. There's no large congregation to impress. Do you think He will be impressed? I thought the two of you were doing just fine coasting along. Remember, slow and steady wins the race! People are looking to you to help them remain stable. What would happen if you came unglued?..."

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I lie awake in bed. My body is worn, and my mind disturbed. I am sick with sin. All of my victories seem empty and distant. The demon that oppresses me is familiar, and I can feel him clutching like he did years ago. I'm at a crossroads and I know it. But to speak the truth before God would be terrifying. I shouldn't be back here again.

I undress and hop into the shower for relief. I timidly begin to confess my sins, but there's still a measure of disbelief in my tone. I've been through this before. I claim his blood, quietly at first, but gradually my voice strengthens and the shake dissipates. My tormentor -- he too is subject to my Lord's authority and sovereignty, and I let him know. I cry out against attacks on friends and family as well. Beads of water flood my face, a refreshing miracle of peace and relief. And He speaks, not like He spoke to me at the altar as a child, not through sensory bliss, but with the clearness of a loved one left in longing.

Returning to my pillow, I am drawn to the softness of my skin and the coolness of my shaven head. I was shamed, but am renewed. I was useless as an outdated motherboard, but am redeemed. I was compromised, but am ruined for Earth. I am being saved, presently and actively.

The thing that was intended from the start has become buried, and once uncovered it comes bursting as if through a mountain of dirt and rock from the end of a tunnel with bad fluorescent lighting and traffic into sunshine and blue sky. This is the habit I'm interested in rediscovering. It is the deep breath after having forgotten to breathe. The one we were made for. Remember the start? Our beginnings? In the beginning there was the recognition that the source of all things was Creator God. There was relational communion with our Maker in all that was life, and we were alive, really alive. He was in the breeze and under rocks and in our love and in our skin and in His voice, oh, His voice. There was no knowledge of anything but what was good, and gratefulness beat in our bones. This is the kind of praise that is sweeter and stronger than anything conjured up in an order of worship on Sunday or during our scheduled morning quiet time or in the songs of the "contemporary worship" service Saturday evening or in classrooms of scholarly study.

-- David Crowder, from Praise Habit