Mere Shadows

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink
or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--
things which are a mere shadow of what is to come;
but the substance belongs to Christ.
-Colossians 2:16-17

Mere shadows...

I wonder how much of our life in Jesus is an interaction with "mere shadow."
Not the reality but a form of it.
How much have we been content to live with and assume it was the real thing but in reality it's something we are not supposed to settle for but press on to find the real substance.

I don't want the perfume of Jesus...I want Jesus!

Don't give me shadows, I want substance.
I don't want ideals...I don't want dream land.
Don't give me a life of pretend, I long for substance.

How much of the Christian life is lived in "mere shadows"?
We spend so much time pretending we are more than we are.
We are actors, playing parts we have memorized but have not really lived ourselves.

We hide in shadows. We speak in veiled conversations.
The curtains of our hearts are only slightly cracked.
We don't really love fully, we are safe, predictable, sanitized.
We couldn't greet one another with a holy kiss because we have forgotten how to kiss.
Were are the lovers...of God and men?

We are so nervous with each other...we couldn't sit at the last supper and drink wine because we all are afraid what we would actually say; if our inhibitions, our defenses were actually down.

No one lays on the breast of God in our gatherings anymore; such public display of affection, such unreserved passion is foreign to our tables.

Where are the weepers, the prophets of tears?
Where are those who have so much pain, suffering, wrestlings, thundering geysers of emotions within their turbulent souls that they cry rivers of tears over cities again? Where is the tender embracing arms of the heavenly hen, who longs to gather under her wings those who are unloved, unwanted and abused?

In mere shadows do we live...

God hasten the day when your people will cast of a life lived in shadows and embrace the light of who you really are and who you have really created them to be.

Oh God may I dare to come out of the life of shadows and begin to walk in the light.
Help me to live the wild pursuit of unashamed nakedness before God and man.

May I embrace my life in You with complete fearlessness and become one who fears nothing other than life less lived, than you intended it to experienced.

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
-James 1:17