When I was a young girl I use to watch a show on television
called “Star Trek,” my favorite episodes contained scenes that included these
holodecks where a crew member would go to a door, push a button and create
a fantasy that they wanted to participate.
My guess is that this is the way crew members spent their days off. Oh how I loved those rooms! You could make anything in your imagine come
to life! Everything seemed so real it was surreal. The surroundings, the people, everything in
that holodeck with that fantasy you created touched upon all of the five senses. I
couldn’t help but wish these rooms really existed.
I thought of this as I was driving into the office today,
then it occurred to me how hard it would be to leave a “make believe world” and
come back to reality if these holodecks were to exist. People would not want to go back to their
normal daily lives. The holodecks would
become an addiction; families would go neglected as would regular daily life. The lows that would follow the highs of being
in such a fantasy world would cause many a mental health worker to have full
rooms with people having emotional issues.
There would be great consequences to having these fantasy rooms, not to
mention how it would affect our physical bodies, our heart rates, our blood
pressures and other aspects. And what if you were to fall in love? So much for
guarding your heart! What if you opened your heart to fall in love as they did in some of the episodes? How
devastating reality would be!
As I thought about this I thought about the smoke screens
we allow ourselves to walk into in our lives. Something that feels so real until you reach
out and try to grasp it and you touch nothing.
A mirage, maybe something that you believed so strongly was real you actually
thought it could be. That it was within
reach. Truly and completely yours and yours alone, sweet, tender, desirable.
But in reality, it never was. Have you had
a “smoke screen” moment?
I found myself
thinking about a snake charmer and how he plays a song that puts the snake in a
trance. Sometimes that is what ol’ slewfoot
allows to become one of our biggest pitfalls.
We step right into his trap and become “entranced” into whatever illusion we want so much to be a part of our lives. Like when a magician puts his
assistant into a trance like state and levitates her and she is unaware of what
has happened until she wakes up....
Next I found myself thinking of Adam and Eve. They had all of Eden as their world. They had intimacy with God. They had absolutely everything! What entrancement did the snake use to make
Eve desire a piece of fruit so strongly that God had forbidden?
“The serpent said to the woman,
"You surely will not die!” For God knows that in the day
you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil." When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one
wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with
her, and he ate.…” (Genesis 3:4-6).
He appealed to her senses, he contradicted what God had told
them and he entranced her into believing something that was forbidden. Notice how Eve didn’t seem surprised that she
was talking with a snake, which leads me to believe that Adam and Eve
communicated regularly with the animals in the Garden of Eden. All the
blessings God could bestow on her, and still she wanted more. How devastating it must have been when she
realized that she had been deceived, and what a
high price they had to pay…
Smoke screens… At some point in your walk, you will run into
one of them, if you have not already. Perhaps
an awareness of them will make the temptation less appealing. Perhaps if we forewarn ourselves we won’t be susceptible
to becoming like that charmed snake. We
won’t be lulled by something that simply will never be… When we are entranced,
depending on how long it last – waking up is painful. Coming to the awareness and reality of the
fact that what you wanted, what you believed in, what you held so tightly
will never come to pass is difficult to accept.
In fact, it is heart breaking, especially if you believed wholeheartedly
it would.
Perhaps this is why God tells us:
“Above
all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs
4:23)
When we enter into a smoke screen, our hearts become
unguarded. When we come to the
realization that what we wanted, will never be – our hearts hurt; the kind of
hurt that a band aid cannot help. The
kind of deep soul hurt that God never meant us to experience, no matter the
cause. The kind of hurt that some never recover from. How do you trust your own judgment when what
you believed that what would be would not? How do you move forward? When that smoke screen clears and all that is
left with you holding on to your heart, your emotions, your reality – how do
you proceed? My guess is that some
cannot. The sweet essence of what you
wanted is hard to let go – even when you realize you never truly HAD it in
the first place.
In a fairy tale, Rip Van Winkle fell asleep for a 100
years. Can you imagine what his shock
would have been like in the waking? What
did he dream so deeply of during that period? Wasn’t it hard to grasp reality
and the fact that so much time had passed? Times had changed. People had
changed, places had changed. What a
shock to his system it would have been to realize that he had slept for so long…
What has been your smoke screen?
What or who has deceived you?
What have you held on to so tightly refusing to let go?
Did you wake up slowly, reaching for someone to find they
were not there?
Did the high of your smoke screen dissipate leaving you with
nothing to face but the reality that was before you?
Did reality enter into your smoke screen clearing it out
until you had no choice but to realize you could not have what it was you
wanted? No matter HOW hard you tried to hold tight to it?
Was it something that appealed to your senses and numbed you
from reality? Or was it something that
captured your heart? Did it entrance
you?
You could stay in that shell shocked state blaming others,
blaming yourself, blaming situations but what good will that do? It will not
change the reality.
There is nothing better than God’s best and that is what He
desires us to have. It is not an
illusion, it is not a “smoke screen” it is not something that will appear for a
moment and be taken away from you. It is
not something/someone that will disappoint or hurt you. I think that God can only heal these hurts by the balm of His Holy Spirit. The pain is to extensive and numbing. The deception too deep.
Thinking of the Garden of Eden, created out of such love by
God for His people. It lacked nothing
and held everything. Who knows more than
your Creator what it is you need? He is
not like people, who will hold out something, deceive you and then snatch it
back. He is not a God that He would
lie.
The blessings of God are not fantasy, but are genuine and real;
they fill the heart and the soul. They
are never ending, not deceptive; better than anything we could have imagined –
even if some little fantasy room were to exist.
However,
as it is written: "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what
no human mind has conceived" -- the things God has prepared for those who
love him. “ (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Perhaps that is why in some near death experiences, people
have indicated they did not have a desire to return. What God has prepared for
us is simply beyond any words that could accurately describe it. But here is the thing - He wants us to walk
in that abundance now; to believe that He desires to bless us NOW, in THIS
life. He doesn’t want us to settle for
anything less than what He has for us.
I am thinking of magazines I have read in which there are
two scenes to compare against each other.
If we were to compare what God has for us to what we ourselves would
have for ourselves – there would truly be no comparison…
I no longer desire those Star Trek style holodecks to
become real. I would not walk into one
now if they existed because I think the emotional damage and the cost to me would
be far more than the worth of the experience itself… I don’t want a “replica” of
what God has for me, I want the genuine thing, I don’t want second best or second
helpings, or a fallacy of what is to be mine.
I am holding out for God’s best, because I truly believe that “best” can
only come from Him, the best is yet to come and its mine (and yours if you want it) - and that’s not blowing any smoke…
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