Everybody lives in their own world - their own little bubble. I am no different than anybody else. And everything in our little bubbles is important to us, We get disturbed when our "bubble-stuff" gets modified or even re-arranged. Here's an example of what I mean.
My wife makes amazing meatloaf. I LOVE meatloaf, probably WAY more than I should. Of all the meatloaf I have ever eaten the meatloaf my wife makes is absolutely the best. I have tried other people's meatloaf. Nope. None compares to the meatloaf my wife makes. Meatloaf is one of the things in my teeny little comfort bubble.
In other words . . . don't be messin' with my meatloaf!
One morning, my wife told me she was making meatloaf for dinner that night. She shouldn't have done that. I thought about that meatloaf ALL DAY! When I got home that night I had already gained two pounds just by THINKING how much meatloaf I was going to eat! I was salivating before I even came in the front door.
But something smelled different. Something was not the same.
"I thought we were having meatloaf tonight," I said, a little concerned about not actually smelling the meatloaf I knew and loved.
"Oh, we ARE having meatloaf. I just made a different recipe."
". . . . what?"
Yeah. My wife made a new meatloaf recipe. It was nowhere NEAR what I was expecting. It was nothing like the meatloaf that I had mentally stored in my little bubble of happiness. That made me think.
Where is God in our sphere of fuzziness? Is He inside or outside of our comfort bubble? Do we only let that parts of God in that we like? Or do we let His whole nature and essence into it? Do we exclude Christ from our bubbles because we don't like how He "tastes" when we "eat of His flesh and drink of His blood?"
Think about your personal little bubble for a minute. What's in it? Do you have anyone else in your bubble . . . like a spouse or a close friend? Or is it only you? Is God like one of our "favorite foods?" Or is He like everything else in our bubble of self? Or is He our all-consuming fire?
"36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:36-40
When I read that passage from Matthew, I begin to think . . . "It is only God who is supposed to be in our bubble. God is to be our reality, our obsession. Please read these words from Philippians. Does it sound like God is IN Paul's bubble? Or is Jesus outside looking in?
"7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own." - Philippians 3:7-12
Paul had my little bubble concept figured out WAY before I did. Our lives should exude Jesus Christ and Him crucified from every fiber of our being. We should fill our bubbles so full of Jesus that we explode, massively, so that everyone near us becomes wet . . . wet with the shed blood of Christ. May Jesus be the ONLY thing that fills us completely, so full, that there is no room for anything else. Then, and only then, will everything truly make sense.
The Boy In The Bubble - Paul Simon
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