How many of us on a daily basis see something that stirs up the past?  We see something so “terrible” that we run and hide.  We don’t just hide anywhere.  We run and hide inside this huge fortress in our heart.  We build these walls up to block out our past and pain.

I know my fortress, yes fortress, used to be quite impressive.  The walls had to be at least 40 feet thick and another 140 feet high.  It even had those need little turret kind of corners to cover all the angles.  Nothing was getting through my wall.

How many of us sit and brood inside our castle?  We sit there and think over the pain that has been brought us in our lives.  We don’t do anything to deal with it.  We sit there and we think about it.   We analyze it, question it, and live in it.  After awhile it starts to consume us.   We don’t know how we ever got this deep.   We don’t really see a way out.  Wallowing in self-pity has become our lives.  We put it on this pedestal of absolute supremacy.  We sit in front of the pain, anger, bitterness, remorse, and questions and give it our undivided attention until we are transformed into a shell of a person.  Our actions are conformed to our focus.  We no longer desire to do anything productive.  There is only a desire to hurt, to be in pain.  

After awhile we lose all focus on everything else.  Sure we will take a look over the wall occasionally to see if the world outside has changed but there is the constant expectation of being hurt all over again.  So we peak just a little bit.  We don’t want to expose too much because someone might get a cleaner shot.

However, we look this one time, just this one time.  We see not an army of darkness and hate, but an army of one.   We hesitate to look longer, yet we do.   We see someone who has been sitting there all along, patient, loving, desiring us.  We are faced with a choice.   Do we duck back down and just say He is going to hurt us too or do we ask Him to come inside?  He had an entire army at His disposal yet He came alone.  Not because we weren’t worth that much, but because He loved us that much.

If we let Him in though, He will see our idol, that idol that sits in the middle of our fortress.  We can’t hide it anymore.  However, that is why He wanted to come in.  Not to conquer us, and destroy us, but to save us from this pain, and hopelessness found inside our castle.  That is why He didn’t destroy us with His legions, but came alone.  He knew that if He destroyed us we would cling to our idol all the more.  So He came as one of us, as a man.  He came in peace, in love, in patience, because He knew that is what we needed.  He came so that He might live inside our heart in that supreme spot, and free us from the pain.

But there is a stipulation.  If He comes in, He requires that we tear down our castle walls.  We can’t even replace it with just a picket fence, because even a picket fence will obstruct His light.   How will someone see Him from his or her castle if there is something obstructing His presence?  So there He sits, waiting for him to look over his wall.  There He waits, longing for her to take just a peak across the parapet.

Will you?  Will you allow the army of One to come in?