God, Go With Me

I discovered something today - I'm not nearly as concerned about where God will send me as I am with whether or not God will go there with me.  Have I ever really sought God's face with desperation before?  Have I ever come to the end of my self and discovered the thirst, the longing to have God at my side?  What if all of this is about shattering my confidence, shattering my broken cisterns that hold no water, and helping me recognize my thirst? 

 

I'm not an expert at anything.  I have nothing to offer to God, except my little life.  I think I feel how Manasseh must have felt in prison, or how the prodigal son felt on the way home. 

 

Is all this the extent to which God has to go to get me to just surrender to him?  Is my neck and are my knees that stiff? 

 

I love Moses.  The people had just broken their covenant with God, worshipping a golden cow, and Moses had no defense for their actions.  They were sinful, they were rebellious, they were stiff-necked.  BUT THEY WERE STILL GOD'S PEOPLE.  And so he wrestles with God for their future.  He won't let them go down, at least not without fighting on their behalf.  And God chooses to forgive.  And He revokes His threat to not go with them into their inheritance.  He remembers his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he honors the arrangement, at great personal cost to himself. 

 

I draw hope from this story (Exodus 32-34, if you want to read it yourself) as I look within my own heart.  I am stiff-necked, but I am God's son.  He has made promises to me, and to Jesus about me.  He will not abandon me now, or ever.  But I must stay HERE - broken, empty, thirsty - and cry out to Him to fill me, to satisfy me, to lead and guide me.  Be persistent, like Moses was - until God shows me His glory.

 

What if that will actually happen?  What if God will actually show up?  I want to find out.

Can God Really Be Trusted?

That's life's ultimate question, right?  If you can confidently (or semi-confidently) answer that question as a "yes," then you will persevere no matter what suffering comes your way.  You'll just interpret every struggle, every pain as part of God's larger process to do good things to and for you.  You'll wait as long as you have to wait to see what that good might be.  Even better, if He can be trusted, then the uncertainty and paralysis that live in my chest dissipate.  Obeying and persevering might hurt me, and it might be difficult, but at least I know what to do.

On the other hand, if the answer is no, then there's really no point in doing the "right thing."  Ever.  It certainly makes no sense to deny yourself some pleasure or to tolerate agony if God can't be trusted.  If He's playing some cosmic game with us (no matter the reason why),  we're all screwed, especially those of us who were raised to be afraid of breaking rules or disobeying authority.  And that belief will drive me to interpret even the good things I experience from God with a great deal of suspicion and fear about what calamity is coming for me next.  I will shrink back from Him like a victim of sexual abuse shrinks back from any affection offered to them for fear that the next moment might involve yet another betrayal.

Is God trying to hurt me, or is he trying to parent me?  How we answer that question will determine the course and the outcome of our lives.

Potential...

...is a beautiful thing when you're 16.  Or 23.  Maybe even 28.  But at some point you have to look in the mirror at your 33 year old face and realize that you can't hide behind that word anymore.  You can't wait it out or delay until the perfect opportunity comes your way.  You have to step up.  You have to lead yourself.  You have to choose something to chase after and then go for it. 

You've got to tell yourself the truth, starting with this little inspirational gem:  your youth is behind you.  The days of waiting to be "discovered" by someone else who will hold your hand and walk you through the minefield are gone.  Thirty-somethings don't "get discovered" - no one is looking for you.  If you're going to leave a legacy, make an impact, you have to make it happen.  You have to care enough to move, because no one is going to come behind you and push you towards your destiny.  Gandalf doesn't exist.  Not for you.  No Marines are coming behind enemy lines to save you.  If you get out, you've got to want it enough to get yourself out.  If you want to be heard, you have to stand up and scream yourself hoarse. 

You have to decide what matters to you - what your life is going to be about.  No golden book is going to fall out of the sky at your feet, no magical fairy is going to give you an instruction manual with a treasure map complete with "x marks the spot."  You've got to figure out what you care about and then move towards that with all your resources, regardless of whether or not you are noticed or given any accolades for doing so. 

It comes down to our ability and our responsibility to make choices.  What I will choose might already be written in the book of fate, I honestly don't know.  All I know is that the fear within me is real.  The hesitation, the doubt, the gut-wrenching nausea is present with me whenever I make a decision, whether I'm just a pawn of fate or not.  It feels real, and all the metaphysical stuff debated on epic television shows and self-important theology classrooms comes down to this:  it feels real, and I have to make a choice.  Now.  I have to make a choice about what kind of man I will be.  I have to make a choice about what kind of father I will be.  I have to make a choice about the kind of suffering that I will try to ease and that I will fight to bring to an end.  I have to stop paralyzing myself with doubt about whether or not I'm selecting the perfect option and just opt for the best one that I can see. 

My life isn't about me anymore.  It's not about what I can accomplish, whether anyone will realize that I'm a diamond in the rough and then raise me up to kill dragons or win glory or make a name for myself.  It's really about three little boys who look a little bit like me.  They're the ones with potential worth developing, worth coaxing into reality.  It's about them learning early on to choose to act and teaching them to convert that potential into actions as soon as they are able.  It's about not letting them cut corners, about pushing them the ways that I was never pushed. 

It's too late for me to "become" a man.  My "becoming" days are behind me.  It's about "being" a man, or as close to one as I can be.  In those moments when I don't know how to do that, then it's about acting like a man.  Making choices to do what a man would do, and letting the history books remember me, or choose to forget me, however they want.

Eli and Saul - two peas in a pod

The sheer amount of layers in the biblical narrative astounds me.  Stories echo each other, drawing an invisible thread from one passage to another that connects them all.  The Bible is not a collection of independent books about the same nation and the same God thrown together, but a carefully designed series of stories that can only be understood in the context of all the other stories. 

Case in point:  have you ever noticed the similarities between Eli (the priest) and Saul (the king) in the book of 1 Samuel? 
1.  Both men were given positions of privilege by God.
2.  Both tolerated blatant disobedience towards God's commandments by the people that they were responsible to lead (for Eli, it was the brazen disobedience of his sons; for Saul, the brazen disobedience of his army when fighting the Amalekites). 
3.  Tragically, both of them had the right to serve God stripped from them AND their family line because of their unwillingness to lead the people under their authority. 
4.  Both received a promise from God that another, more worthy servant would take their place (Eli was told that God would raise up for himself a "faithful priest" - 3:34, and Saul was told that God had sought out a man after his own heart to rule over God's people - 13:14, 15:28). 
5.  Both died tragic, violent deaths.  Eli heard about the capture of the ark of God in the war with the Philistines, fell over and broke his neck (not a good way to go).  Saul lost his life in battle, too, pierced through by his own sword as God's enemies swirled around him.  It did not end well for either one of them. 

The bridge between these two failed leaders is Samuel.  He "learns the ropes" from Eli and watches the failures of his sons.  He faithfully leads Israel for his whole life, but ironically begins to resemble Eli - his sons do not walk in the ways of the Lord (just like Eli), and that leads to Israel asking for a king.  God is hurt by their request, and the guy that God gives them is Saul, who demonstrates pretty quickly by his actions that he isn't cut out to be the king that God intended to bless His people with.  (I believe that God intended all along to give the job in just a few years to a young man after His own heart, David.  If only the people could have waited a bit longer - God would have given them their king, and they could have avoided the whole Saul fiasco.  There's a lesson in there somewhere, I think!)

I'm not 100% sure what the point is of these similarities, or the significance of Samuel being deeply involved in both of their lives (Eli and Saul, that is), but I don't think it's just thrown together.  These echoes are intentional, and there IS a point.  Now I just need to figure it out.  Or rather, I just need to keep reading. 

N.T. Wright is my C.S. Lewis

Here's what I mean by that:  whenever a Christian thinker/preacher/teacher wants to pull out the big guns and shut down any potential disagreement with their ideas, they quote C.S. Lewis, right?  Maybe it's the quote about Aslan not being a tame lion (but don't worry, he's good), or the one about our pleasures being too weak (remember the mudpies?), or...fill in the blank.  If C.S. Lewis agrees with you, or if you can make something that he said seem to support your idea, then you're golden.  Whew!  That was a close one.  It's like throwing out the "race" card in a discussion about Tiger Woods, or throwing out the "I gave birth to your children" card when you're trying to pick what movie to watch on a Friday night.  It trumps everything in a heartbeat.  It's settled. 

I'm being a bit sarcastic, but I mean no disrespect to C.S.  His writings shaped the thinking of an entire generation (or two) of Christian thinkers so completely that it's almost impossible for them to formulate their faith without referring back to his words.  He put things in such a witty and succinct (and often funny) way that you put down the book, nod your head, and say, "You tell 'em, Jack!"

So, crazy props to C.S. Lewis.  But I'm moving on - to another British intellectual with two initials in front of his name (and this guy actually has had some theological training...smile). 

N.T. Wright has been around forever, I guess, but I'm just now discovering him (about two years ago, now).  In that time I've read four or five of his most recent books and have thoroughly enjoyed each one(Surprised by Hope literally changed my life - every Christian needs to read this book, agree or disagree) .  He writes in this very formal, British style that also is weirdly conversational at the same time.  He has shaped my thinking on so many different issues - so much so that I don't think I can express my beliefs or my convictions about what the purpose of life is without echoing his words at some point. 

His greatest gift to me has been to help me arrange doctrines into their proper places.  For example, I've always believed in the doctrine of the resurrection, and in the coming kingdom of God - but I never realized that those two pieces of the puzzle were inextricably linked together and each inform the other one.  Along the way, he's helped me question some of the cliches that have crept into my thinking and challenge them with Scripture. 

I'd go into more detail, but that would make this post much too long and ultimately unreadable.  I just wanted to come out of the closet, so to speak, and reveal my "theologian-crush" on N.T. Wright. 

(But I still like Aslan...I promise!)

The King's Speech - A Date with Fear

Without outside intervention, none of us can conquer our fears.  Willpower, hard work, self-discipline isn't enough.  It just doesn't work.  We must be led.  We must be "fathered" into it.  We need to hear the words "You have what it takes - you can do it" from someone we look up to before we can believe it ourselves. 

So, in the movie, a stuttering king is terrified of public speaking, and he finds someone to help him.  Sound interesting?  Probably not - and yet I couldn't look away for 2 hours this evening.  The king isn't really scared of public speaking - that's a triviality that his fear attaches itself to - he's really terrified of letting down his family, his people, his nation, and ultimately, his father.  He is convinced that he doesn't have what it takes, and so all his attempts to improve himself fall short.  He doesn't believe, and none of those trying to help him really believe, either. 

And then he meets a quack - an Australian speech therapist unintimidated by his persona and title.  But this man is different - he believes that the king has what it takes, and just needs to be awoken to that fact.  And like a father, he leads this fatherless man down the path to facing his fear and becoming the man and the leader that he was always meant to be. 

This is the way that it always happens.  You don't just wake up one morning, decide you have to overcome a fear, and then grit your teeth until the job is done.  You must find someone who can lead you down that path.  You must look for a father, and you must trust him enough to submit yourself to the training, to the grueling process of transformation. 

The great tragedy of our time is that we have so few fathers to lead us.  To make matters worse, we fearful sons don't trust the ones that we do have.  Whenever we actually ARE called to manhood by one of these rare fathers, we're often unwilling to submit ourselves to the necessary training that manhood requires.  It's too strenuous, too demanding - and we still don't believe it will work.

We all need fathers.  I think we know that.  The challenge to me and my generation is this:  it is time to stop bemoaning the fact that we don't have fathers and we need to become fathers.  We must undergo the training, however we can, as best we can, and then dare to offer whatever we have gained and learned to others - to our friends, and our sons, and our friends' sons.  Maybe the greatest gift that we can give the next generation of men is to look into their eyes as boys and believe in them.  And then tell them - over and over again - as often as we would have liked to have heard it ourselves.  And then offer them training they will need to seize their moments and win their battles. 

Maybe then we can put the Enemy on his heels and push back the darkness.

The One Thing I Wish God Had Never Said...

The other night at youth group my pastor was teaching about obedience from 1 Samuel 15.  Classic passage, right?  "To obey is better than to sacrifice..."  We all say "Amen" and move on without too much emotional connection to the passage.  We apply it to our children, to our respect for authority, to our requirement to be holy as God is holy - it's all so...obvious (and a little boring, if we're honest).  But the actual context of the statement is quite disturbing and shakes me a bit.

The command that God expects Saul to obey completely is this:  a death sentence for every man, woman, child, infant, and animal belonging to the Amalekite kingdom.  Saul and his soldiers were to be God's executioners.  No mercy - just slaughter and bloodshed.  Can you imagine the screams?  The stench?

For just a moment, I'm going to set aside whether or not it was "right" for God to command this - I'm willing intellectually to embrace the idea that God, as the Judge of the earth, will only do what is right, that no one (not even an infant) is totally innocent, and that these people were just paying for horrifying sins that they had committed as a society. 

But if God makes that call, why can't he just carry out the sentence himself?  Why ask Israelites soldiers to take their swords and kill women, children, and infants?  Wouldn't those images, those sounds, those smells, follow you for the rest of your life?  How could you ever look at your own kids again in the eye?  If an army were to do anything like this in today's world, they would be villified and judged for it, and rightly so.  So, why did God ask his people to play the part of the Nazi?  No, not ask - COMMAND. 

I know that this was a fairly isolated incident, that this isn't the way that God often handled sin and human rebellion.  In fact, I know that God's OT record is much more kind and gracious than any of us deserve.  I'm not trying to do the whole "the OT God is bloodthirsty, NT God is sweet and kind" thing.  But I just don't understand why God would command his people to do something that in almost any other scenario would be completely horrifying and evil.  I understand that God has a right to use people to execute judgment and all that - it just seems totally out of character.  Again, maybe I'm just a namby-pamby liberal Obama-loving tree-hugger and all that - but if it was such a great idea to begin with, why doesn't he do it anymore?  Why change the way he deals with sinful people in our times?

I just don't know if I could obey that kind of a command.  Intellectually, I think I could agree that God has a right to execute any human being at any time because of their sins.  Emotionally?  When it came down to me breaking into an Amalekite hut and putting children to death?  I don't think I could do it. 

Ironically, Saul and his soldiers didn't see to have any moral problems with wiping out the women and children - their obedience problem was related to the fact that they wanted to keep the spoils of the cattle and sheep and all that.  Saul's disobedience wasn't on any "high moral grounds" - it was because he was greedy and wanted to keep it for himself.  But...should he have disobeyed on different grounds?  (Bear with me, here for a second...)

When Abraham heard that God had slated Sodom for complete destruction, he negotiated with God on the basis of His justice.  The issue wasn't "save the women and children" as much as it was "don't sweep away the righteous with the wicked," but the principle is intriguing.  Abraham challenged the way that God had planned to administer his justice, appealing to God's mercy and grace, and God gave way each time.  (See Genesis 18 for more details.)

When God threatened (on a few occasions) to wipe out the Israelites, most notably with the whole Golden Calf incident (Exodus 32-34), Moses intervened - "No, God!  You can't wipe out your people!  You promised Abe, Ike, and Jake!  Turn away from your fierce anger..."  And God did.  Each time.  It seems that a common theme, even in the Pentateuch, is that if God is appealed to show mercy and grace to underserving people by men in relationship with God, God allows Himself to be entreated.  He backs down. 

So, should Saul have begged God to spare the Amalekites?  To show them his mercy?  To at least spare him from having to take part in their execution?  I honestly don't know.  When God pronounced his judgment on Moses (that he would not go into the promised land because of his disobedience), Moses begged God to change his mind and he refused.  When David's first child by Bathsheba was sick and struggling towards death, David begged God to heal the boy and God refused.  Maybe God would have told Saul to stop arguing and send him anyway.  But maybe not. 

I am grateful that God works differently through the church today - that we are called to suffer and die rather than to inflict suffering and kill.  I don't pretend to have all the answers, or to be able to approach God's dealings with sinful humanity from any kind of moral high ground - but this is a disturbing picture, no?  Any thoughts or comments, cyber-friends?