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.
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