Several years ago, I was in a pretty serious relationship, so I bought a condo and got engaged. I had been a semi-homeless, wandering derelict for quite a while, but figured if I was really going to get married we ought to have a place to live. I certainly didn't mind living under a bridge and eating macaroni or ramen noodles every night, but was convinced this was probably not conducive to a healthy family life; at least that was what most members of society were telling me. We eventually broke off the engagement (a good thing for both of us - more on that later), which made my roommate quite happy at the time, because it meant he got to stay. I still had a pretty spacious two bedroom condo; it seemed like a waste of good living space for only two people, especially after traveling around the world for many years and seeing so many people suffering from a lack of shelter. So I began to say "yes" to anyone looking for a roommate or place to live. Since then, my condo -- and my life -- has stayed pretty full. Lessons are best learned in community with others, I think.
It's been amazing for me to see how many people, even in our "great" country, are desperately in need of permanent housing or even a place to spend a night. I've never advertised or recruited anyone; most of my roommates have come to me through random life situations or through the "referral" of friends. I think our American culture has promoted individualism to the point where it is even looked down on as "weird" to be living in community, especially in a multi-family situation. My condo has become known as the Holly Oaks Hostel; I get approached often with requests from well-meaning Christians for friends of theirs going through tough times - whether it be financial issues, marital problems, job re-locations, or even just good ol' derelicts like myself who need a warm, dry place to rest their weary head. I'm usually over-booked; I've learned to challenge my well-meaning Christian friends (who are usually married) with: "Why not your place? He's your friend! You've got a lot more room than I do!" This usually makes them uncomfortable - I usually get "that wouldn't be practical" as a response. Sadly, our culture has labeled it "weird" for married people or people with families to provide extended hospitality to others in a bind, causing many to be deprived of one the greatest joys in the Christain's life - extending hospitality to someone in need. I've had multiple couch surfers, people living on my recliner, people renting floor space, people wanting to rent out the back balcony.... I actually had a "waiting list" for my couch for a while. Admittedly, there have been some sticky situations, but overall, the experience of being a "slumlord" has brought me great joy, taught me a lot about hospitality, and brought many new friends into my life.
One of those friends was a guy named Brian. He'd been through some tough times - lost a job, been evicted, lost his car, and was in a bad relationship. He really just needed a new start and some time (and a place) to get his feet back on the ground - a married couple from my church asked me if he could stay at my place for a while. For all I knew, the guy was an ax-murderer, but I had a vacant couch, so I said "sure". I'm not the most out-going person in the world, but within about three days, we became good buddies - he was just that kind of guy.... you met him, you liked him. He moved out a long time ago, but to this day I am still envious of his natural ability to meet people and become close friends with them. Complete strangers - everyone from convicts to celebrities - wanted to trade contact information with him and hang out with him within about thirty minutes of meeting him. You'd want to be his best friend, too.
He wanted to go to to the church where I was going at the time. He'd already met some people from it at a big "tent revival" held here in Dallas and - quite naturally - had become good friends with them. He didn't have a car, so he rode with me every week - a drive that was about twenty minutes each way. To this day, I can't remember who or when or exactly what started it, but we officially began the fantastical (debatable) organization known as the Pharisidical Council. If you are of the type that can get offended when religion is flippantly discussed, I'd suggest you stop reading this blog right HERE.
At some point, during some theological argument on the drive to church, we both declared ourselves Pharisees (in memory of the ones during Christ's earthly life), and decided that the only way to properly defend our arguments was to convince each other and those around us at church that we were indeed more righteous than everyone else around us. Everything was said and done "tongue-in-cheek", but it got pretty bad. It started out with bringing bigger Bibles ("The bigger the Bible, the bigger the Christian!") multiple Bibles ("Two Bibles equals twice as righteous"), dressing up to look extra-righteous, and getting to Sunday school super early and sitting on the front row each week, so everyone else could be in awe of how righteous we were. It escalated quickly to wearing sun glasses and covering our faces with "veils" so we wouldn't be blinded or blind others with the shekinah glory coming from our faces - obvious evidence that we had been in the presence of the Lord that morning before church. We would scream "unclean!" when a non-council member would bump into us, because they were obviously less righteous than us. We threatened to start dressing up each week for church like cardinals or even in papal vestments (we never did) and walk around the church blessing people with the sign of the cross and holy water the way the pope does. We even had a skit worked up: On Brian's week to lead Sunday school, he was going to teach on divorce (a dicey subject in our modern day church), coming down hard on all the remarried divorcees as adulterers... Jonathan Edwards style. At the apex of his condemnation of all the divorcees as adulterers, I was going to stand up, tear my priestly robes, scream "hypocrite!" and chase Brian (he was divorced) out of the room, stoning him with pencils and erasers the whole way down the hall. This never happened either; he decided to teach on "blessed are the peacemakers" instead. I'll stop with that, for fear anyone reading this blog will write me off as a complete heretic -- but these ideas were only the beginning. Let your collective imaginations run wild. Brian lived with me for eight months, and for about thirty minutes every Sunday on the way to church, we plotted and schemed and invented new methods, new skits, and new one-liners that we would use to try to convince others that we were more righteous than those around us, including each other. Brian, being pretty witty, would usually come out on top with the most creative phrases and ideas, but being a true Pharisee I would always refuse to humble myself and admit defeat. I probably laughed more each of those Sunday mornings in those thirty minutes than I did the rest of my week.
The reality was we had created a microcosm, albeit an exaggerated one, of what church denominations really are. An Episcopalian missionary (who called his own denomination the "frozen chosen") put it best. He said, in his view, the main reason churches have broken away and formed new churches is this: When we read the Bible, when we pray, when we seek God with all our hearts and try to understand what it means to be Christ-like and live our lives the way he did and compare our life to His, the result is often so terrifying and so scary and so seemingly impossible, that we pull back, and resort to living and validating our lives and Christian walk by simply comparing ourselves to the other "Christians" around us. The Pharisees did it in Christ's society; the common Christian usually does it in ours (I'm guilty). We are called to be one, but most Christians in America define their identity not by Who they know or by what they do for the Kingdom of Christ, but by differentiating themselves from other Christians, usually based on certain doctrinal beliefs or by the church body they attend, or by a famous theologian they admire. Even Paul, Peter, and Apollos had to deal with this in their day. We make ourselves feel superior by pointing out our style of worship, what kind of songs we sing, or how good our respective clergy can orate. Our doctrinal statements often accentuate theological intricacies that define us from other churches or denominations, as if we're better than them due to the way we interpret certain Bible verses, or how often we take the Lord's Supper, or in the way it is served. We fight for and against pet moral issues in the public sector, like abortion and gay marriage, so that we can make ourselves feel good about our own righteousness compared to the un-churched heathens, since most of us that attend church haven't had abortions or participated in overtly homosexual behavior. I've seen many "pro-life" and "Marriage = One man + One Woman" bumper stickers on the back of fancy cars in church parking lots here in Dallas, but have yet to see a "feed the hungry" bumper sticker on the back of a Mercedes Benz. The point is, that we "Christians" are guilty of creating many different pseudo-Christian religions/sects that attempt to attract members by creating environments where we can validate our sense of morality by comparing ourselves to others in our society - both churched and unchurched - and providing the doctrinal statement/stance/rules to back it up. Pharisees in the 21st century, if you will - no different than the ones Jesus dealt with in His day.
I don't believe it was ever God's design for us (the church) to practice a religion. He wants a relationship, an intimate, loving marriage if you will, where we commune with Him in daily worship and live our lives bearing His image - showing and making His love and His glory known to others. The idea of being in such an abstract relationship makes many of us uncomfortable; we like our created religions where we can just check of our Christian responsibilities like a "to do" list. It makes our relationship with God much more comfortable and seemingly doable. I don't think God is ever impressed with this kind of "religion", especially when it is done in the name of Christ. Paul was the most righteous of Pharisees (in a check-list sort of way), but God struck him blind, and the rich young ruler walked away sad, shortly after telling Jesus he had kept all the commandments. They were both devout followers of God, a.k.a "religious", but neither had a loving relationship with Him at the time. Imagine how your significant other would feel if you just related to him/her with a check-list every day...."bought flowers/chocolates....kissed her...told her I loved her...told her she was beautiful...spent time with him...told him I loved and respected him) and then went in and checked it off a list posted on the fridge. I don't think she/he would find this very meaningful. Sure -- it's easier, but not real meaningful.
The point of all this is to say that, despite all the problems the church - the bride of Christ - has, I think our lack of oneness is the most egregious of all our sins as a corporate body. It was/is our job to show Christ and make Him known to a watching world. One of His last prayers before He was crucified was "I pray, Father, that they would all be one, as You and I are one, so that the world would know that you sent me." Does the world know this? Obviously not. If we work backwards in this verse, we can determine the cause of this failure. Welcome to the Pharasidical Council, where we "set ourselves apart" from each other.
I think when this life is over, when this world is gone, and we kneel before an infinite Creator and give an account of our earthly lives, He probably won't ask us where we went to church or how often we went. He won't really care what kind of music we sang, how we dressed each week, or to whom we traced the ancestry of our church leadership, or how good our preacher was, or even how much we knew about the Bible. I pretty sure this will all seem pathetically trivial at the time. Instead, I think He'll ask us if we knew His Son. I think He'll ask if if we fed and clothed our neighbors and gave them shelter when they were hungry and naked and cold.. I think He'll ask us if we visited widows, prisoners, and orphans and befriended the lonely. He'll want to know who we told about Him, and if our lives backed up His message of love, mercy, and grace. "It wasn't practical" won't seem like a very good excuse at the time. The Bible makes it pretty clear what was expected from Christ's followers during times of heavy persecution; I tremble about what this means for the church in America, with our freedoms and riches. We can start by being one in Christ. Enable us Lord. In Christ's name, Amen.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Being an Image-Bearer of the King: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
It was the Summer of 2003, I had quit my job and was living in the mountains of Colorado in a tent. I really believe God likes to camp -- I truly believe He led me out there, to a place where He and I could just "hang-out", where I would be away from many of the distractions of big-city living in Dallas that were entangling my life. It was a fantastic summer -- I learned more in four months than I had in 30 years of going to church -- there will be other blogs on that later, perhaps. I had a good time, made some good friends, and saw some fantastic scenery -- but one of the greatest things I got out of the summer was a new direction for my life, job-wise.
I realized I would probably eventually be heading back to Dallas (it gets pretty cold camping in the Colorado mountains during the winter), and would need to find a "job" again. I didn't want to sell paint any more; although I was in a good spot when I left, I was kind of burned out, and figured I needed to preserve what few remaining brain cells I had left for other endeavors. Even though I was in a situation where, financially, I didn't need to work for a while, I figured I ought to be employed -- at age 30, just not working made me look lazy, and telling people I was retired would come off as prideful/arrogant. My little brother had been working for a valet company in Dallas when I left while he was in seminary and had tried to talk me in to working part-time with him -- a bit "beneath" me at the time, perhaps, but it was still an attractive offer to me. It's contract valet -- you call in each week, and can choose whenever/wherever you want to work -- thus allowing great freedom with the job. You get to run around a lot (good exercise), drive cool cars, meet famous people, and make pretty good money. The company started employees at $8.00/hour plus tips, which usually ends up somewhere in the $15-$20 an hour range, sometimes much more, depending on the event. I certainly wasn't making that much per hour in retail management. Tips were predominantly not reported by the employees (and definitely not by the company), a situation made possible by the fact that the base pay was high (up to $13.50), so unlike a waiter or other valet companies, the IRS would probably never have a problem with it, especially since it was part-time work for most people there. I was really attracted to this aspect of the job, because in my Republican, Ron Paul-esque mindset, I was not a big fan of paying taxes to a corrupt government to be used for corrupt purposes. But every time I had entertained the idea of valeting before, I felt something was preventing me.
All my life, by God's grace, and in His mercy, I feel like He has mightily protected me from the most egregious of sins, as society would label them. I haven't slept around, used alcohol or drugs, or committed crimes or other such heinous acts that society, and (sadly) Christians tend to point fingers at and label as "bad." This isn't to pat myself on the back or make myself look as a holier-than-thou, God knows (yes, He does) that I'm among the chief of sinners, living much of my life full of pride and selfishness, having lustful and covetous thoughts, dishonoring my parents, placing other gods before Him, and absolutely murdering people with my tongue. In God's mercy He continues to forgive me and mold me. His Spirit lives in me and continues to convict me to the point of confession, a relationship made possible by the payment of His son's death for my sins and me accepting Him as my savior. So I'm not claiming any goodness of or on my own --I'm simply saying that somehow, despite opportunities to indulge in the worst of debauchery as society and our modern day church would have it, I've always been protected from such evil. I was never quite sure why, I certainly had it in me to do such things -- I was just somehow always prevented from indulging.
That summer, more than ever before, I came face-to-face with the idea that I was God's ambassador - His image bearer -- an ambassador of Christ, THE King, Himself. We represent Him to a watching world, a watching church, to show the world what He looks like -- less the message of the gospel, His eternal autobiography to reveal himself to all creation, be tarnished or discredited. I tremble as I ponder the responsibility of this. I think one of the most revealing passages in the whole Bible about this is the one in which David commits adultery with Bathsheba and has her husband killed. Nathan comes to David, then king of Israel, and "tricks" him into condemning himself for what he has done. Nathan then announces David's punishment (that the child would die and the sword would not depart from his house). Adultery and murder would seem pretty significant to us, even in our modern society of tolerance, but when announcing David's punishment, it's interesting that Nathan doesn't even include these as the causes of God's judgment. He says "...because you've given the enemies of the Lord a reason to blaspheme." Here was David, the earthly king of God's chosen nation, the head-honcho of the nation whose job was to represent Him -- His image -- to the rest of a watching world, and David had chosen to show them that God is an adulterer and a murderer. The gravity of this in God's eyes was far more serious than killing some guy or sleeping with his wife. His image to a watching world -- represented more than anyone else at the time by the earthly king of the people that the world saw as His nation -- and therefore the message of His story about Himself, had been tarnished. David, who is the only person we know who was described by God as "a man after my own heart" understood the context and gravity of what he'd done. In his oft-studied confession in Psalm 51 he writes "against You and You only have I sinned." I had always been curious about this, because it certainly would seem that he sinned and committed evil against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. But in the context of having dishonored the image of God, David felt like this was almost nothing. It would be like a thief stealing $1,000,000,000.10. The news would just report that a billion dollars had been stolen -- the ten cents would seem pretty much irrelevant to all involved parties, even though it was stolen as well. David had "stolen" from God's image, and God wanted it back, to show it before a watching world. So He used David's whole sin/conviction/repentance process to give us one of the most beautiful prayers of repentance in scripture, to bring glory to His name once again by showing the world His divine grace and seemingly unending mercies towards His creatures that would rebel against Him. Thank You, Lord.
This is what God laid on my heart that summer, in relation to my "re-employment". He did indeed want me to go back and be a valet - a service-industry job where I'd learn to serve others, where I would learn to view and treat other people as higher than myself, where I would cater to their needs in the simple role of parking their cars. No longer would I feel humanistic pride by flashing a business card and telling them what I did "for a living". I would get to meet, work with, and become good friends with people from all over the world with various religious backgrounds. Almost every religion, even every "Christian" denomination is represented in our company. It was in this role, that for 7 years, God wanted to shape me, teach me, and mold me into the leader -- the servant that He could use greatly in His kingdom. He wanted (and still wants) to change me into a person that He can trust to bear his image before men. I came back from Colorado, walked into my apartment, and took a phone call. The operations manager of the valet company my brother was working for was calling for him; I told him my brother wasn't home. He then asked me if I wanted to come be a valet.
So here's my confession. When God led me to this "servant's role", part of what He wanted me to do was to report all my tips, to the other valets (obviously, since we split tips -- well...at least most of us do), to the company office (even though they don't) and of course, to the IRS. While most other valets are honest with each other, many don't accurate report event info to the company office, and almost none report tips to the IRS. Like I said earlier, it's usually a part time job for most. The company certainly doesn't pass along the info on its W-2s, and the base-pay rate is high enough to keep everything looking on the up-and-up. I've actually only met two other valets (out of about 2000 in a 7-year span) that told me they kept track of all their tip money and reported it as additional revenue to the IRS each year. We were the "weirdos", but I still felt that this was something God had deliberately instructed to do, especially when I signed the "I certify all the above information is correct" on my 1040 each year. I always had. Until this year. How ironic this is about to get.
I've taken this year off so far, to try to do some writing about things God has laid on my heart, mostly just to clarify/hash out things God has laid on my heart about my life and life in general, to try to get a better perspective on what my life role may be in the context of God's eternal plan, while living on this temporal earth. I wanted to step back and get an view of my own life from an observer's perspective, which is one of the reasons I believe I was led to start putting things on paper. I felt this would help me categorize random thing that had been flowing around in my head over the past several years. I wanted to remove some time-consuming activities and concerns that were distracting me so I told the valet office I'd be out for a while, cashed out of the stock market, and bought a bus pass. My roommates both sold me on using "Turbo-tax" to do my taxes for the first time -- I agreed mainly just because I didn't want to do all the messy paperwork associated with 1040 -- I had bigger and better things to focus on. I didn't work a whole lot last year for the valet company, lost a good bit of money in the stock market by getting completely out (more on that later, maybe), and therefore was due to get back pretty much all (if not more) of the federal income tax that the company had withheld from my paychecks. I accurately entered all the info the program asked for, from the "amount in box A of W-2", to the "tips not reported to the employer" (I put 0, since I indeed had reported all my tips to the company, even though I knew they wouldn't pass it along) and the interest income. I left the "income from capital gains/stocks" section blank, even though I knew the IRS would receive 1099s, justifying it with the thought that since I'd taken losses, I'd actually had no income. I finished the easy session by confidently signing (via e-file) that everything was correct and honest, since, technically, on paper, it was. In the back of my mind I acknowledged that God had always led me to report all tip income to the IRS as a witness of His character to all my other valets and whoever else may be watching me, but I went ahead with the justification that I wasn't cheating/lying/stealing on my taxes, since if the IRS or anyone ever audited me for the year, I'd come out clean; the stock losses I took far outweighed the extra tips I didn't report, and I was probably actually owed more money than I got back using turbo-tax, since the reality was I'd actually over-reported my income because of this. Bring on the IRS I thought; the joke's on them if they actually audit me.
Many might argue that not being completely transparently honest on a turbo-tax form is not near as serious as adultery and murder, but as an image bearer of the King Himself, it is quite the same. People know me as a Christian - someone who is an ambassador of the message of the glory of God on this earth. I am robbing God of this glory by not bearing His image accurately before men and a watching world. Whether a thief steals $1,000,000,000.10 or only $1,000,000,000.05, the crime will still be reported as someone stealing a billion dollars; the extra pennies will seem irrelevant. Forgive me, Lord for I have sinned against You. Restore me to Yourself anew. Use me for Your purposes, that I would know You more. Do this regardless of the cost, but only in Your love and mercy. In Christ's name, Amen.
I'm still trying to figure out what all this means for me and for my life. I have felt that God has protected me from myself, from many sins I was tempted to do and even attempted to do, to bear witness of Him in some sort of public sphere before a watching church, a watching nation, and a watching world, or even a watching universe. I have yet to figure out how this will look. I've dabbled in politics but am convinced God desires to change the world through His church, not through political power or legislation. This perhaps comes across as boastful - like I think I'm somebody special, or have superb abilities to teach, speak, or write. I assure you this is not true. I'm fairly quiet and anti-social by nature; I prefer "alone" time much more than a big crowd. It's just that at this point, I can't figure out why God's hand of protection against "visible" or "researchable" sins in my life has been greater than I can properly explain; greater than that of many of my family and friends who certainly have lived more Christ-like lives than me, whose lives bear much more evidence of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In terms of human evaluation in a public sphere, I could stand before men trying to dig up dirt on me and say "Do your worst!". I'm sure they will. Maybe, just maybe, God will allow me to read this confession to someone, so that His name, His glory, and the ever-unfolding story of His divine grace will be known to even more men. So help me God.
I realized I would probably eventually be heading back to Dallas (it gets pretty cold camping in the Colorado mountains during the winter), and would need to find a "job" again. I didn't want to sell paint any more; although I was in a good spot when I left, I was kind of burned out, and figured I needed to preserve what few remaining brain cells I had left for other endeavors. Even though I was in a situation where, financially, I didn't need to work for a while, I figured I ought to be employed -- at age 30, just not working made me look lazy, and telling people I was retired would come off as prideful/arrogant. My little brother had been working for a valet company in Dallas when I left while he was in seminary and had tried to talk me in to working part-time with him -- a bit "beneath" me at the time, perhaps, but it was still an attractive offer to me. It's contract valet -- you call in each week, and can choose whenever/wherever you want to work -- thus allowing great freedom with the job. You get to run around a lot (good exercise), drive cool cars, meet famous people, and make pretty good money. The company started employees at $8.00/hour plus tips, which usually ends up somewhere in the $15-$20 an hour range, sometimes much more, depending on the event. I certainly wasn't making that much per hour in retail management. Tips were predominantly not reported by the employees (and definitely not by the company), a situation made possible by the fact that the base pay was high (up to $13.50), so unlike a waiter or other valet companies, the IRS would probably never have a problem with it, especially since it was part-time work for most people there. I was really attracted to this aspect of the job, because in my Republican, Ron Paul-esque mindset, I was not a big fan of paying taxes to a corrupt government to be used for corrupt purposes. But every time I had entertained the idea of valeting before, I felt something was preventing me.
All my life, by God's grace, and in His mercy, I feel like He has mightily protected me from the most egregious of sins, as society would label them. I haven't slept around, used alcohol or drugs, or committed crimes or other such heinous acts that society, and (sadly) Christians tend to point fingers at and label as "bad." This isn't to pat myself on the back or make myself look as a holier-than-thou, God knows (yes, He does) that I'm among the chief of sinners, living much of my life full of pride and selfishness, having lustful and covetous thoughts, dishonoring my parents, placing other gods before Him, and absolutely murdering people with my tongue. In God's mercy He continues to forgive me and mold me. His Spirit lives in me and continues to convict me to the point of confession, a relationship made possible by the payment of His son's death for my sins and me accepting Him as my savior. So I'm not claiming any goodness of or on my own --I'm simply saying that somehow, despite opportunities to indulge in the worst of debauchery as society and our modern day church would have it, I've always been protected from such evil. I was never quite sure why, I certainly had it in me to do such things -- I was just somehow always prevented from indulging.
That summer, more than ever before, I came face-to-face with the idea that I was God's ambassador - His image bearer -- an ambassador of Christ, THE King, Himself. We represent Him to a watching world, a watching church, to show the world what He looks like -- less the message of the gospel, His eternal autobiography to reveal himself to all creation, be tarnished or discredited. I tremble as I ponder the responsibility of this. I think one of the most revealing passages in the whole Bible about this is the one in which David commits adultery with Bathsheba and has her husband killed. Nathan comes to David, then king of Israel, and "tricks" him into condemning himself for what he has done. Nathan then announces David's punishment (that the child would die and the sword would not depart from his house). Adultery and murder would seem pretty significant to us, even in our modern society of tolerance, but when announcing David's punishment, it's interesting that Nathan doesn't even include these as the causes of God's judgment. He says "...because you've given the enemies of the Lord a reason to blaspheme." Here was David, the earthly king of God's chosen nation, the head-honcho of the nation whose job was to represent Him -- His image -- to the rest of a watching world, and David had chosen to show them that God is an adulterer and a murderer. The gravity of this in God's eyes was far more serious than killing some guy or sleeping with his wife. His image to a watching world -- represented more than anyone else at the time by the earthly king of the people that the world saw as His nation -- and therefore the message of His story about Himself, had been tarnished. David, who is the only person we know who was described by God as "a man after my own heart" understood the context and gravity of what he'd done. In his oft-studied confession in Psalm 51 he writes "against You and You only have I sinned." I had always been curious about this, because it certainly would seem that he sinned and committed evil against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. But in the context of having dishonored the image of God, David felt like this was almost nothing. It would be like a thief stealing $1,000,000,000.10. The news would just report that a billion dollars had been stolen -- the ten cents would seem pretty much irrelevant to all involved parties, even though it was stolen as well. David had "stolen" from God's image, and God wanted it back, to show it before a watching world. So He used David's whole sin/conviction/repentance process to give us one of the most beautiful prayers of repentance in scripture, to bring glory to His name once again by showing the world His divine grace and seemingly unending mercies towards His creatures that would rebel against Him. Thank You, Lord.
This is what God laid on my heart that summer, in relation to my "re-employment". He did indeed want me to go back and be a valet - a service-industry job where I'd learn to serve others, where I would learn to view and treat other people as higher than myself, where I would cater to their needs in the simple role of parking their cars. No longer would I feel humanistic pride by flashing a business card and telling them what I did "for a living". I would get to meet, work with, and become good friends with people from all over the world with various religious backgrounds. Almost every religion, even every "Christian" denomination is represented in our company. It was in this role, that for 7 years, God wanted to shape me, teach me, and mold me into the leader -- the servant that He could use greatly in His kingdom. He wanted (and still wants) to change me into a person that He can trust to bear his image before men. I came back from Colorado, walked into my apartment, and took a phone call. The operations manager of the valet company my brother was working for was calling for him; I told him my brother wasn't home. He then asked me if I wanted to come be a valet.
So here's my confession. When God led me to this "servant's role", part of what He wanted me to do was to report all my tips, to the other valets (obviously, since we split tips -- well...at least most of us do), to the company office (even though they don't) and of course, to the IRS. While most other valets are honest with each other, many don't accurate report event info to the company office, and almost none report tips to the IRS. Like I said earlier, it's usually a part time job for most. The company certainly doesn't pass along the info on its W-2s, and the base-pay rate is high enough to keep everything looking on the up-and-up. I've actually only met two other valets (out of about 2000 in a 7-year span) that told me they kept track of all their tip money and reported it as additional revenue to the IRS each year. We were the "weirdos", but I still felt that this was something God had deliberately instructed to do, especially when I signed the "I certify all the above information is correct" on my 1040 each year. I always had. Until this year. How ironic this is about to get.
I've taken this year off so far, to try to do some writing about things God has laid on my heart, mostly just to clarify/hash out things God has laid on my heart about my life and life in general, to try to get a better perspective on what my life role may be in the context of God's eternal plan, while living on this temporal earth. I wanted to step back and get an view of my own life from an observer's perspective, which is one of the reasons I believe I was led to start putting things on paper. I felt this would help me categorize random thing that had been flowing around in my head over the past several years. I wanted to remove some time-consuming activities and concerns that were distracting me so I told the valet office I'd be out for a while, cashed out of the stock market, and bought a bus pass. My roommates both sold me on using "Turbo-tax" to do my taxes for the first time -- I agreed mainly just because I didn't want to do all the messy paperwork associated with 1040 -- I had bigger and better things to focus on. I didn't work a whole lot last year for the valet company, lost a good bit of money in the stock market by getting completely out (more on that later, maybe), and therefore was due to get back pretty much all (if not more) of the federal income tax that the company had withheld from my paychecks. I accurately entered all the info the program asked for, from the "amount in box A of W-2", to the "tips not reported to the employer" (I put 0, since I indeed had reported all my tips to the company, even though I knew they wouldn't pass it along) and the interest income. I left the "income from capital gains/stocks" section blank, even though I knew the IRS would receive 1099s, justifying it with the thought that since I'd taken losses, I'd actually had no income. I finished the easy session by confidently signing (via e-file) that everything was correct and honest, since, technically, on paper, it was. In the back of my mind I acknowledged that God had always led me to report all tip income to the IRS as a witness of His character to all my other valets and whoever else may be watching me, but I went ahead with the justification that I wasn't cheating/lying/stealing on my taxes, since if the IRS or anyone ever audited me for the year, I'd come out clean; the stock losses I took far outweighed the extra tips I didn't report, and I was probably actually owed more money than I got back using turbo-tax, since the reality was I'd actually over-reported my income because of this. Bring on the IRS I thought; the joke's on them if they actually audit me.
Many might argue that not being completely transparently honest on a turbo-tax form is not near as serious as adultery and murder, but as an image bearer of the King Himself, it is quite the same. People know me as a Christian - someone who is an ambassador of the message of the glory of God on this earth. I am robbing God of this glory by not bearing His image accurately before men and a watching world. Whether a thief steals $1,000,000,000.10 or only $1,000,000,000.05, the crime will still be reported as someone stealing a billion dollars; the extra pennies will seem irrelevant. Forgive me, Lord for I have sinned against You. Restore me to Yourself anew. Use me for Your purposes, that I would know You more. Do this regardless of the cost, but only in Your love and mercy. In Christ's name, Amen.
I'm still trying to figure out what all this means for me and for my life. I have felt that God has protected me from myself, from many sins I was tempted to do and even attempted to do, to bear witness of Him in some sort of public sphere before a watching church, a watching nation, and a watching world, or even a watching universe. I have yet to figure out how this will look. I've dabbled in politics but am convinced God desires to change the world through His church, not through political power or legislation. This perhaps comes across as boastful - like I think I'm somebody special, or have superb abilities to teach, speak, or write. I assure you this is not true. I'm fairly quiet and anti-social by nature; I prefer "alone" time much more than a big crowd. It's just that at this point, I can't figure out why God's hand of protection against "visible" or "researchable" sins in my life has been greater than I can properly explain; greater than that of many of my family and friends who certainly have lived more Christ-like lives than me, whose lives bear much more evidence of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In terms of human evaluation in a public sphere, I could stand before men trying to dig up dirt on me and say "Do your worst!". I'm sure they will. Maybe, just maybe, God will allow me to read this confession to someone, so that His name, His glory, and the ever-unfolding story of His divine grace will be known to even more men. So help me God.
Roadtrips and Reunions: Somebody please tell me my life has meant something.
This past autumn, I took a fairly gratuitous road-trip to go visit the college where I graduated. I didn't really care much about going to the reunion or even seeing my college for that matter; I really just wanted to see some Arkansas fall foliage (we don't get much in Dallas), do some hiking and camping, and visit a friend. I needed a really good excuse to get me out of work on one of the busiest weekends of the year for the valet company that I work for, and a 15th college reunion seemed a little more saleable than telling them I wanted to go frolicking in the woods for a weekend. The trees were pretty, the lakes and streams cold, and visiting my old college roommate was enlightening (more on that later), but I got more out of the reunion than anything.
At most reunions, the basic format is you sign in, get your name tag with the year you graduated, eat sugary snacks, drink alcohol (punch if at a "Christian" college), and mix and mingle with your proud fellow alumni. At younger reunions there might be dancing; at older ones people may sit around and talk about who died. However, at every reunion I've ever been a part of, the crux of nearly every conversation you hear will be each and every person trying to convince their peers that they have done something worthy with their life - that they have been a success in whatever way their peer group defines success. At MIT, it may be what you've invented; at an Ivy League, what you've done in the political world; at SMU or any prep school, how much you've partied or who you've gotten to know; at Wofford they'll want to know how much money you've made. Yes, I know - these conversations happen everywhere, but at a college reunion they're at the forefront of every discussion because, in theory, college is the place that prepared us to "do life". Our lives scream out for relevance; supposedly, college has prepared us to make our lives relevant. Therefore, in our ongoing quest to validate ourselves amongst our fellow humans and peer groups, reunions - without intentionally trying to do so - create an environment where an overwhelming pressure exists to convince others that we've "done life" well. We have unknowingly created rooms full of people wearing clothes that no longer fit, fake hairpieces, and plastic smiles who spend intense, stressful hours walking around introducing old friends to their 2nd or 3rd wives or husbands, while trying to convince each other their lives have been successful - that their lives have meant something. As I sat there, I couldn't help but wonder if the truth of the situation was deeper than the obvious -- that, perhaps, everyone's real desire is to somehow convince our self that our own life has been a success; that we've done life well and that our life has had meaning. We seek this at reunions by trying to artificially manipulate respect and compliments out of our peers for so sort of self-validation; trying unsuccessfully to fill our heart's cry of "tell me my life has had worth... tell me my life has meant something."
None of this surprised me. I think I understand the human nature pretty well. In our fallen state -- separated from God because of sin -- humans (whether saved or unsaved) inherently know that there is something wrong, something not quite right with us -- and we run around trying to get others to confirm that we are indeed ok, to try to fill this void with some sort of confirmation from others that we are quite all right in our current state. We long for someone to speak some sort of validation into the life we've lived to make us feel like we were indeed worthy of living life. Donald Miller breaks this whole idea down in his book "Searching for God Knows What", which is probably the best psycho-analysis of the human nature that I've ever read. I think everyone ought to read it.
Usually, the whole re-union experience doesn't bother me much. Almost anyone that knows me (ok, probably everyone that knows me) will tell you I don't do the artificially-created social experiences well, but I usually try to suck it up and play the game as long as I can. However, I can only handle so many "party laughs" and superficial conversations before I cave in -- which usually manifests itself into me leaving the party (unsociable), me separating from the group to go off and be by myself (socially awkward), or me intentionally injecting something "real" into the conversation that makes everyone uncomfortable (extremely socially awkward). I figured I would get through this one though -- I'd done reunions before and came out just fine, and after all, these were my peeps. But this one bothered me.
You see, I went to a college that would proudly advertise itself as the most Christiany of colleges: an extremely conservative, Church-of-Christer, wifer-for-lifer institution where everyone votes Republican and flies the American flag in front of their house. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. There are many other colleges just like it with many different denominational ties that all advertise they are preparing their students for "God's kingdom". I met many nice people that night, and almost all of them wanted to tell me about their careers or professions, their families, and where they were staying in town for the weekend - which is very important in a small town where the university runs a top-notch hotel. The beauty of these encounters was that for perhaps the first time in my life, I didn't succumb to my usual act of frustratingly forcing uncomfortable topics into artificial conversations to create a socially awkward situation. I didn't have to. I simply answered their questions.
alumni: "What do you do?"
me: "You mean for employment?"
alumni: "um.. yeah"
me: "I'm a valet - I park cars for a living." Awkward pause. (Loser)
alumni: "um... oh, did you bring your family with you?"
me: "I'm single, 37, and never been married, I don't have family to bring." Another awkward pause (Real Loser)
alumni: "Oh! Well, there's nothing wrong with that! Plenty of our friends waited until their 30s to get married! There's still hope!" (party laugh)
Usually, the line of questioning broke here to some even more superficial banter, so most unfortunately, people usually didn't get to #3:
alumni: "Where are you staying for the weekend?"
me: "I'm sleeping in the back of my pick-up out in the parking lot behind the gym. I got a topper on back with tinted windows, and picked up two layers of shag carpet padding by dumpster-diving at a carpet outlet place, so I'm living pretty large this weekend!"
All this sounds funny, but it made me sad. I was sad because I pondered if living a good Christian life, if "doing life well" in the average Christian's eyes, has reached the point where we're labeled a success as long as we've nailed down a good job, raised a healthy family, and maybe gotten involved in a local church. We've basically defined a successful life in the same way our society has because it's easy, comfortable, and can be done on our own -- outside of an active, daily, loving relationship with the God of the universe. We're "practicing our religion" like crazy, but seem to have very little intimacy with the One we claim to worship. We love to have Him as a happy little add-on to our comfortable lives, but keep Him at arm's length away, because we realize how terrifying it might be for Him to be our all-consuming passion. In two hours of re-unioning at a renown "Christian" college, I was not once asked about my relationship with God, how I desire to love and serve Him, what that looks like for my life, or how I was going about making His love known to others. When we eventually reunion with God, there will be a party and a great banquet, and we won't have to try to force comments out of Him to make us feel like our lives meant something or that we "did life well". He'll be pretty honest, I think. Hopefully, we'll all receive "Well done, My good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master's rest." Somebody tell me my life means something....
At most reunions, the basic format is you sign in, get your name tag with the year you graduated, eat sugary snacks, drink alcohol (punch if at a "Christian" college), and mix and mingle with your proud fellow alumni. At younger reunions there might be dancing; at older ones people may sit around and talk about who died. However, at every reunion I've ever been a part of, the crux of nearly every conversation you hear will be each and every person trying to convince their peers that they have done something worthy with their life - that they have been a success in whatever way their peer group defines success. At MIT, it may be what you've invented; at an Ivy League, what you've done in the political world; at SMU or any prep school, how much you've partied or who you've gotten to know; at Wofford they'll want to know how much money you've made. Yes, I know - these conversations happen everywhere, but at a college reunion they're at the forefront of every discussion because, in theory, college is the place that prepared us to "do life". Our lives scream out for relevance; supposedly, college has prepared us to make our lives relevant. Therefore, in our ongoing quest to validate ourselves amongst our fellow humans and peer groups, reunions - without intentionally trying to do so - create an environment where an overwhelming pressure exists to convince others that we've "done life" well. We have unknowingly created rooms full of people wearing clothes that no longer fit, fake hairpieces, and plastic smiles who spend intense, stressful hours walking around introducing old friends to their 2nd or 3rd wives or husbands, while trying to convince each other their lives have been successful - that their lives have meant something. As I sat there, I couldn't help but wonder if the truth of the situation was deeper than the obvious -- that, perhaps, everyone's real desire is to somehow convince our self that our own life has been a success; that we've done life well and that our life has had meaning. We seek this at reunions by trying to artificially manipulate respect and compliments out of our peers for so sort of self-validation; trying unsuccessfully to fill our heart's cry of "tell me my life has had worth... tell me my life has meant something."
None of this surprised me. I think I understand the human nature pretty well. In our fallen state -- separated from God because of sin -- humans (whether saved or unsaved) inherently know that there is something wrong, something not quite right with us -- and we run around trying to get others to confirm that we are indeed ok, to try to fill this void with some sort of confirmation from others that we are quite all right in our current state. We long for someone to speak some sort of validation into the life we've lived to make us feel like we were indeed worthy of living life. Donald Miller breaks this whole idea down in his book "Searching for God Knows What", which is probably the best psycho-analysis of the human nature that I've ever read. I think everyone ought to read it.
Usually, the whole re-union experience doesn't bother me much. Almost anyone that knows me (ok, probably everyone that knows me) will tell you I don't do the artificially-created social experiences well, but I usually try to suck it up and play the game as long as I can. However, I can only handle so many "party laughs" and superficial conversations before I cave in -- which usually manifests itself into me leaving the party (unsociable), me separating from the group to go off and be by myself (socially awkward), or me intentionally injecting something "real" into the conversation that makes everyone uncomfortable (extremely socially awkward). I figured I would get through this one though -- I'd done reunions before and came out just fine, and after all, these were my peeps. But this one bothered me.
You see, I went to a college that would proudly advertise itself as the most Christiany of colleges: an extremely conservative, Church-of-Christer, wifer-for-lifer institution where everyone votes Republican and flies the American flag in front of their house. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. There are many other colleges just like it with many different denominational ties that all advertise they are preparing their students for "God's kingdom". I met many nice people that night, and almost all of them wanted to tell me about their careers or professions, their families, and where they were staying in town for the weekend - which is very important in a small town where the university runs a top-notch hotel. The beauty of these encounters was that for perhaps the first time in my life, I didn't succumb to my usual act of frustratingly forcing uncomfortable topics into artificial conversations to create a socially awkward situation. I didn't have to. I simply answered their questions.
alumni: "What do you do?"
me: "You mean for employment?"
alumni: "um.. yeah"
me: "I'm a valet - I park cars for a living." Awkward pause. (Loser)
alumni: "um... oh, did you bring your family with you?"
me: "I'm single, 37, and never been married, I don't have family to bring." Another awkward pause (Real Loser)
alumni: "Oh! Well, there's nothing wrong with that! Plenty of our friends waited until their 30s to get married! There's still hope!" (party laugh)
Usually, the line of questioning broke here to some even more superficial banter, so most unfortunately, people usually didn't get to #3:
alumni: "Where are you staying for the weekend?"
me: "I'm sleeping in the back of my pick-up out in the parking lot behind the gym. I got a topper on back with tinted windows, and picked up two layers of shag carpet padding by dumpster-diving at a carpet outlet place, so I'm living pretty large this weekend!"
All this sounds funny, but it made me sad. I was sad because I pondered if living a good Christian life, if "doing life well" in the average Christian's eyes, has reached the point where we're labeled a success as long as we've nailed down a good job, raised a healthy family, and maybe gotten involved in a local church. We've basically defined a successful life in the same way our society has because it's easy, comfortable, and can be done on our own -- outside of an active, daily, loving relationship with the God of the universe. We're "practicing our religion" like crazy, but seem to have very little intimacy with the One we claim to worship. We love to have Him as a happy little add-on to our comfortable lives, but keep Him at arm's length away, because we realize how terrifying it might be for Him to be our all-consuming passion. In two hours of re-unioning at a renown "Christian" college, I was not once asked about my relationship with God, how I desire to love and serve Him, what that looks like for my life, or how I was going about making His love known to others. When we eventually reunion with God, there will be a party and a great banquet, and we won't have to try to force comments out of Him to make us feel like our lives meant something or that we "did life well". He'll be pretty honest, I think. Hopefully, we'll all receive "Well done, My good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master's rest." Somebody tell me my life means something....
An Eternal Perspective: All things for the glory of God.
It was the spring of 2003. I had walked away from my "career" as a retail manager for the Sherwin-Williams Co. on my 30th birthday, frustrated and angry with life. On paper, I was doing life quite well by society's standards -- I was having a lot of fun, playing a lot of sports, hanging out with lots of friends, traveling the world -- pretty much doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I had an extremely cushy, well-paying position at a Fortune 200 company; I was enjoying my job more than I ever had around the time I quit. But I was dying inside. I had become bored with life; it seemed like I was made for so much more (cue the Switchfoot song). This world didn't seem like it had much to offer me. I had experienced success in almost every way the world defines it and was left wanting deeply. I had been raised in church, taken Bible classes in college, and had a pretty decent theological knowledge of the Christian faith; the only thing that made sense to me was that I didn't really understand what it meant to live the kind of life that an Almighty Creator intended for me to live while on this earth. I wanted God to show me what that looked like; I wanted to know that I was part of something bigger than the ideal our society had given me for "a good Christian life". I prayed to know Him and His ways more; I needed an eternal perspective of what life on this earth was all about.
God took me to the Colorado mountains for the summer. I pitched a tent in the western San Juan range, just outside a little town called Ouray, and spent about 4 months reading my Bible cover to cover, including all the commentaries, all the "secular" history as it related to stories in the Bible, and studying every time line and chronological account I could find that related to world history in the context of a Biblical narrative. It was a beautiful time of learning, prayer, and worship everyday; I think God needs to take us out of the world for a while to get the world out of us. I never really enjoyed extensive Bible reading before. I had always felt it was a chore; a discipline even. But most afternoons, after hanging out in the little town, soaking in the hot springs, and playing with the local kids, I could barely.wait to get back to the mountains and begin reading my Bible again. God was giving me an eternal perspective.
I think we often cheapen Christianity by humanizing it. I mean, I know we're humans; that Christ was human; that He died and was resurrected to pay for the sins of humanity; and that humans can live eternally in heaven with Him if we repent of our sins and accept Him as our savior -- these are all the basic precepts of the "religion" that almost every "Christian" denomination agrees on. The problem is that we put these beliefs, principles, and practices in a box, trying to create a story that we can understand, trying to break it down in a way that we can study it as theological knowledge, trying to create check-lists from it that we can give self-evaluations (and judge others too!) to see how we're doing in our "walk with God". We want (desperately) to understand God, so we try to break Him down to the point where we can understand Him as He relates to us and our world, as if we are the main thing/event happening in this great unfolding cosmic story. Such a view, I believe, is complete arrogance on our part. We think way too highly of ourselves.
The general Christian "story", if you will, is that God created the heavens and the earth, that He made man as a caretaker of the earth, that man was deceived by the devil and sinned against God; thus, sin entered the human race and God had to come rescue humanity by sending His one and only son, Jesus Christ, to die for their sins so that they could eventually be re-united with God by accepting His sacrifice for their sins. The world will continue to spin out of control until Christ returns again, re-unites with all His followers and kicks some serious tail which results, eventually, in Satan and all his minions being thrown into an eternal lake of fire and suffering for all eternity. We, as Christ's followers, will then celebrate with Him for the rest of eternity in Heaven. Done and DONE.
The problem with this is that we fail to truly recognize the eternal and omnipotent nature of God. What was He doing before He made earth? Made humanity? We have some knowledge of an "angelic conflict", but other than that, we don't have much. God is usually pretty active; so much so, that He makes a pretty big deal about the day He rested after creating our earthly world. So much so, in fact, that the penalty for not resting on the Sabbath by the Israelites was death, because they failed to in essence, bear the image of God. Therefore, I have trouble believing God was just hanging out, basically doing nothing before creating earth -- eternity is a long time, and for a Being whose general nature is to create and love, this would seem to be a long time to not be creating, or loving by sharing Himself and His glory with created beings. Because of this, I think we (humans) and our little earthly plot are a mere blip, a short little chapter, if you will, of a great cosmic novel that will never end. God is writing an epic adventure that we are fortunate enough to be a part of; the alternative would be to never have been created (for some this would be better). Did God know man would sin, would turn against Him -- in essence try to overthrow His authority over them as Satan did? If you believe in the omnipotent nature of God, the answer is clearly yes. God doesn't make mistakes. Therefore, I would argue God created man for the very PURPOSE of sin. Pharaoh was raised up "for this very purpose", and Christ was foreordained to be slain "before the foundation of the world". Romans 11:32 tells us that "God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all". This was always our Creator's plan. For this very purpose God created man (Adam) so that He could eventually show His love and His glory to ALL heaven and earth by becoming one of the seemingly piddly little rebellious creates that turned against Him, allowing them to brutally kill and mock Him so that He could redeem them to Himself. Try wrapping your mind around that sometime. I think as all the rest of the cosmos watched on, there were angelic jaws dropping in astonishment, not able to comprehend, trying to understand how and why a Being that was so much greater than them would become like a creature so much less than them, then allow other such creatures to kill Him as to redeem them; to bring them back into a relationship with Himself, so that they might experience His glory once again. God used/uses our sin to demonstrate the wonder and beauty of His grace.
Allow me here to perhaps become a heretic in the eyes of others. Are there other worlds/planets/universes we're not of aware of? Probably. Other beings? Most certainly. Will there be more? I think most definitely. Once our little world ends, and all we Christians get to heaven, I don't think God will just say "My work is done" and just hang-out with us for the rest of eternity. I believe He will always be creating, always be loving, always be sharing His glory more and more with all the beings He keeps creating. The most unselfish thing someone who is perfect could do is to share Himself and His nature with others- He gives us a little bit of Himself; therefore making us His image bearers. As imperfect beings, though, we really screw this up because in our imperfect state we can't handle it; we like the angels inherently want to use it to become ourselves God, claiming authority over our own lives and all that is around us. We denounce what we know to be true and desire to become the authority of our own lives. I think, like the angels in our little story, we will probably get to play active parts in other future stories that He writes, maybe interacting with other beings in other stories that are even lower than us- beings that, like us, will rebel against their Creator and have not yet been redeemed by their Creator in a way that will astonish us, even in a redeemed state where we are living with our Creator. God help us all.
In the meantime, He continues to write a story. It's a beautiful story; a love story. A real page-turner that even the angels in Heaven can't put down. It's filled with romance, suspense, intrigue; it has protagonists and antagonists. There are wars, acts of bravery, victories against "impossible" odds. There are improbable heroes. All of this culminates in a grand battle of good versus evil, where good wins out and evil as WE know it is defeated permanently. But this is one small chapter. Eternity is a long time, and He will never stop writing/creating/loving/revealing /sharing His glory. He's taking applications. Do you want to be a part? The role you play will depend on how willing you are to follow the Director's commands. You are in the story whether you like it or not. You can be a central character, or supporting actor, or you can just be an "extra". You will be on the side of good or evil -- you will play a part regardless; you will either win or lose. We are simply, yet beautifully, part of a great plot -a great story that others will read and watch, and be in awe of the Author. He is writing a story about Himself - an autobiography if you will - so that His audience, all of His creation, will know all about Him ...and because He is so utterly, completely, unimaginably OTHER, the story will never end -- we will never fully comprehend who He is. It has and is and will be the greatest story ever told. Let's read on. Father, show us Your glory. In Christ's name, Amen.
God took me to the Colorado mountains for the summer. I pitched a tent in the western San Juan range, just outside a little town called Ouray, and spent about 4 months reading my Bible cover to cover, including all the commentaries, all the "secular" history as it related to stories in the Bible, and studying every time line and chronological account I could find that related to world history in the context of a Biblical narrative. It was a beautiful time of learning, prayer, and worship everyday; I think God needs to take us out of the world for a while to get the world out of us. I never really enjoyed extensive Bible reading before. I had always felt it was a chore; a discipline even. But most afternoons, after hanging out in the little town, soaking in the hot springs, and playing with the local kids, I could barely.wait to get back to the mountains and begin reading my Bible again. God was giving me an eternal perspective.
I think we often cheapen Christianity by humanizing it. I mean, I know we're humans; that Christ was human; that He died and was resurrected to pay for the sins of humanity; and that humans can live eternally in heaven with Him if we repent of our sins and accept Him as our savior -- these are all the basic precepts of the "religion" that almost every "Christian" denomination agrees on. The problem is that we put these beliefs, principles, and practices in a box, trying to create a story that we can understand, trying to break it down in a way that we can study it as theological knowledge, trying to create check-lists from it that we can give self-evaluations (and judge others too!) to see how we're doing in our "walk with God". We want (desperately) to understand God, so we try to break Him down to the point where we can understand Him as He relates to us and our world, as if we are the main thing/event happening in this great unfolding cosmic story. Such a view, I believe, is complete arrogance on our part. We think way too highly of ourselves.
The general Christian "story", if you will, is that God created the heavens and the earth, that He made man as a caretaker of the earth, that man was deceived by the devil and sinned against God; thus, sin entered the human race and God had to come rescue humanity by sending His one and only son, Jesus Christ, to die for their sins so that they could eventually be re-united with God by accepting His sacrifice for their sins. The world will continue to spin out of control until Christ returns again, re-unites with all His followers and kicks some serious tail which results, eventually, in Satan and all his minions being thrown into an eternal lake of fire and suffering for all eternity. We, as Christ's followers, will then celebrate with Him for the rest of eternity in Heaven. Done and DONE.
The problem with this is that we fail to truly recognize the eternal and omnipotent nature of God. What was He doing before He made earth? Made humanity? We have some knowledge of an "angelic conflict", but other than that, we don't have much. God is usually pretty active; so much so, that He makes a pretty big deal about the day He rested after creating our earthly world. So much so, in fact, that the penalty for not resting on the Sabbath by the Israelites was death, because they failed to in essence, bear the image of God. Therefore, I have trouble believing God was just hanging out, basically doing nothing before creating earth -- eternity is a long time, and for a Being whose general nature is to create and love, this would seem to be a long time to not be creating, or loving by sharing Himself and His glory with created beings. Because of this, I think we (humans) and our little earthly plot are a mere blip, a short little chapter, if you will, of a great cosmic novel that will never end. God is writing an epic adventure that we are fortunate enough to be a part of; the alternative would be to never have been created (for some this would be better). Did God know man would sin, would turn against Him -- in essence try to overthrow His authority over them as Satan did? If you believe in the omnipotent nature of God, the answer is clearly yes. God doesn't make mistakes. Therefore, I would argue God created man for the very PURPOSE of sin. Pharaoh was raised up "for this very purpose", and Christ was foreordained to be slain "before the foundation of the world". Romans 11:32 tells us that "God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all". This was always our Creator's plan. For this very purpose God created man (Adam) so that He could eventually show His love and His glory to ALL heaven and earth by becoming one of the seemingly piddly little rebellious creates that turned against Him, allowing them to brutally kill and mock Him so that He could redeem them to Himself. Try wrapping your mind around that sometime. I think as all the rest of the cosmos watched on, there were angelic jaws dropping in astonishment, not able to comprehend, trying to understand how and why a Being that was so much greater than them would become like a creature so much less than them, then allow other such creatures to kill Him as to redeem them; to bring them back into a relationship with Himself, so that they might experience His glory once again. God used/uses our sin to demonstrate the wonder and beauty of His grace.
Allow me here to perhaps become a heretic in the eyes of others. Are there other worlds/planets/universes we're not of aware of? Probably. Other beings? Most certainly. Will there be more? I think most definitely. Once our little world ends, and all we Christians get to heaven, I don't think God will just say "My work is done" and just hang-out with us for the rest of eternity. I believe He will always be creating, always be loving, always be sharing His glory more and more with all the beings He keeps creating. The most unselfish thing someone who is perfect could do is to share Himself and His nature with others- He gives us a little bit of Himself; therefore making us His image bearers. As imperfect beings, though, we really screw this up because in our imperfect state we can't handle it; we like the angels inherently want to use it to become ourselves God, claiming authority over our own lives and all that is around us. We denounce what we know to be true and desire to become the authority of our own lives. I think, like the angels in our little story, we will probably get to play active parts in other future stories that He writes, maybe interacting with other beings in other stories that are even lower than us- beings that, like us, will rebel against their Creator and have not yet been redeemed by their Creator in a way that will astonish us, even in a redeemed state where we are living with our Creator. God help us all.
In the meantime, He continues to write a story. It's a beautiful story; a love story. A real page-turner that even the angels in Heaven can't put down. It's filled with romance, suspense, intrigue; it has protagonists and antagonists. There are wars, acts of bravery, victories against "impossible" odds. There are improbable heroes. All of this culminates in a grand battle of good versus evil, where good wins out and evil as WE know it is defeated permanently. But this is one small chapter. Eternity is a long time, and He will never stop writing/creating/loving/revealing /sharing His glory. He's taking applications. Do you want to be a part? The role you play will depend on how willing you are to follow the Director's commands. You are in the story whether you like it or not. You can be a central character, or supporting actor, or you can just be an "extra". You will be on the side of good or evil -- you will play a part regardless; you will either win or lose. We are simply, yet beautifully, part of a great plot -a great story that others will read and watch, and be in awe of the Author. He is writing a story about Himself - an autobiography if you will - so that His audience, all of His creation, will know all about Him ...and because He is so utterly, completely, unimaginably OTHER, the story will never end -- we will never fully comprehend who He is. It has and is and will be the greatest story ever told. Let's read on. Father, show us Your glory. In Christ's name, Amen.
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