House of Cards

During one of my sessions today, my client and I were talking about what it looks like when we create our own security. The image that came to my mind was a house of cards. I can't think of a single human being who hasn't tried to create her own security in life. She may use different cards than me, but those cards are often the tunnel vision on appearance, the drive for financial stability, the comfort of relational approval or attention, the glory of recognized achievements, you name it. When we do this, we create a sometimes impressive but always fragile house of cards. We scramble from one side to the other, pushing cards that are slipping out of place back into position, shielding the structure from the wind, making sure we are there to fix a problem before it even starts. This creates panic, stress, fear, and frustration since the house of cards can't stand for long. Something always brings it crashing down, but we somehow believe we can just build a better one, and we go at it again.

The solution, then, seems to be to let the house of cards fall and let God build a structure in its place. By finding our security in Him, that doesn't mean life never falls apart, but it means we don't have to keep it all in place on our own. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to let our manmade security crumble around us. Yes, there's rubble, smoke, and dust when that happens, but out of the ruins comes something built to last. It reminds me of the verse that comes at the end of my favorite passage of Scripture: 

"They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities    that have been devastated for generations." (Isaiah 61:4). 

I know that these verses aren't referring precisely to what I'm talking about here, but it seems to me they still communicate what was discussed today: our lives are in ruins, whether we acknowledge it or not. A house of cards is not a house that can be lived in, and God knows this, so He rebuilds the mess we make of our lives for His glory. When we try to keep our lives held together by fragile joints of our own making, we end up having to spend our lives scrambling around to keep everything in place. That's not a security that lasts. In fact, that's not security at all. Security is defined as "freedom from risk or danger; safety / freedom from doubt anxiety, or fear; confidence / something that gives or assures safety / one who undertakes to fulfill the obligation of another; a surety." Instead, this sounds like the definition of chaos: "a condition or place of great disorder or confusion; a disorderly mass; a jumble."

In Christ and Christ alone comes true security. Without Him, we fix our eyes upon our house of cards, hands at the ready to catch it when it starts to topple. In other words, we don't get to live. We spend our lives biting our nails and waiting for problems and shifting our weight nervously from foot to foot and hoping the mess isn't too big when it all comes falling down. However, He "undertakes to fulfill the obligation of another." He does for us what we can't do for ourselves. We can trust Him to keep it under control and build our lives of materials - His salvation, His presence, His faithfulness, His peace - that last. 

The next time I reach for my personal deck of cards to begin building my own peace and security, I want to reach for the Lord instead. I want security that lasts. Better yet, I want the only One who has it to offer.