Faded

It always amazes me how things fade over time.

Seasons. Friendships. Desires. Clothing. Opinions. Color.

Even my office seems faded when I compare it to the view at the window: green trees and grass, white clouds, and a beautifully blue sky.

So many things fade that we barely notice: the newness of other things takes our focus away from what is fading.

After Moses had been in the presence of God, his face (literally) glowed.

But once the Israelites had seen him and heard God’s commands, he would place a veil over his face to keep the people from seeing the glowing as it faded away.

When we come away from being in God’s presence, we should glow. There should be something different about our appearance. People should be able to tell where we have been.

So often, however, we tend to come away from God’s presence unchanged. We don’t show that we have been in the presence of God. People cannot tell our life from the next life. We file the “experience” away in our memories.

If we reflect God’s glory at all after having been in His presence, it has a tendency to quickly fade before anyone can tell it was there, and often even before we can tell it was there.

We are a faded people.

We take notice of bright colors and bright things. We dress ourselves up externally with clothing and jewelry, personality and titles, but we fail to fix the problem:

Instead, we choose to cover up our faded beings.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called, The Great Divorce, in which he tells the tale of one man’s journey from hell into the High Countries (Heaven).

Everything in hell was grey and very drab. Nothing had color. Everything was faded, and, once the man stepped off the bus, he realized that he too was ghost-like:

He was so faded that he failed to touch or feel the grass on which he stood.

But as he continued his moving into the High Countries, he found himself becoming more solid, more real, and more life-like.

As we spend time with Christ, we should become more solid, more real, and more life-like than we could have ever been on our own.

Christ came so that we might have life and have it “more abundantly”.

True life is found in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

This earth will one day fade, but the glory of God never will.

Lord Jesus, take these faded lives and make them more real. Remove from us all of our grey and clothe us in the splendor of Your glory. We seek for the abundant life that Christ came to give, for true life is in Christ alone. May all who see us know that we are Yours.

[[originally published at saLt on 08.06.2004]]