We Are Dust

One of the greatest comforts I have in this life is that God’s sovereignty supersedes my will.

Have you ever done something in a dream that you were convinced you could never, or would never do? What a horrifying experience that is! Mitigated only by waking up and discovering to your relief it didn’t actually take place. But where was your will in that untethered moment of failure? Was that part of your brain asleep? How flimsy the human will must be to become disengaged… to become inaccessible… to suddenly and without warning be out of reach! Every night our minds may potentially enter a state where we do not entirely govern our own thoughts and actions!

Who can trust a will so prone to failure?

Have you ever been given a medication/drug where your will was hijacked, and you became totally obedient and compliant with no cognizance of doing so? Where reality was absent, or altered—and your responses hinged on illusion? How fragile! How deceptive to believe we can be master of our will when we are so easily capable of losing control over it! So easily swept out of touch with reality!

How on earth do we place so much credence on such a frail entity?

Have you experienced or witnessed the effects of dementia, Alzheimer’s, or any other condition that alters the mind, choices, personality? As a survivor of multiple strokes, these are realities I’ve had to wrestle with. Suddenly the person you were, you aren’t. Your memory, your identity, your skills, your history— disintegrating, fragmenting… like a sand sculpture that collapses into dust with the smallest brush of thought. How easily our minds are displaced! And what is our will in moments we are not even ourselves?

Do you see how little it takes to shake us from our throne? How pitiful it is to think we preside over ourselves?

I have no confidence in the human mind or will.

They are unreliable…

Fallible…

Weak…

Subject to this fallen, broken world… and so easily fractured!

I often think about Nebuchadnezzar, whose sanity was at the mercy of God. Stripped in an instant, restored in an instant, completely by the charge of God. (Daniel 4:34-37)

Who can place confidence in the mind and will of man?

I can’t.

What a comfort it is to place all of my confidence in a sovereign God, so far above my feeble construct!

What a comfort that HE presides over my cognizance and my will! (Ps.73:26; 2 Cor. 4:7)

I have a greater understanding now, and appreciation for the commonly quoted scripture:

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3).

It isn’t about peace like a fuzzy feeling or an exhaustive mental discipline…

It’s about where we place our confidence.

When I look at myself, I spiral.

When my confidence shifts to any part of who I am and what I am made of and what I can do, what I can choose—I have no peace because I am dust.

Dust!

You cannot anchor in dust.

It’s absurd to even consider it.

But when I look to Him… when I take my eyes off of me and firmly fix them on HIM… I have peace.

I am anchored in what is unchanging, what is perfect, what is holy!

My heart is set on the King of all Creation, Who presides over my dust, and holds me safely in His hand!

Soli Deo Gloria!