The Written Heart

What Would God Do if He Did Whatever He Wanted to Do? - Part 2

2010-03-16T08:27:00.002-04:00

Are we comfortable with God’s tendency to be fresh and new? We prefer patterns and predictability, reproducible principles. We presume to systematize, categorize, and alphabetize the Alpha and Omega. We would observe God with objective distance and take notes. We would put God in a petri dish and from our observations we would reduce him to mere formulas. We would edit abridge and abbreviate the Almighty. The Bible becomes a manual for “tips and techniques.” Perhaps our hearts are in the right place but our efforts may be misplaced. All the while as we observe and deduce theological recipes and formulas we unwittingly prescribe acceptable parameters for the Lord. How good of us to show God his place.

We resist accepting God for his unpredictability while he seems comfortable with unresolved philosophical tension, dichotomies and seeming contradictions. He himself is the ultimate paradox. He is light and yet clothes himself in darkness. He is lion and the lamb; high priest and the sacrifice; servant and king. He is near as a song and distant as a sunset. He is peaceable love and a bloodstained warrior.

He is comfortable with the unpredictable, undisturbed with ambiguity. We would have consistently reproducible patterns of action/reaction. But God is out of the box if he does what he wants to do and may not submit to our prescribed principles and methodology. When he is who he is without our prearranged notions of deity, he is raw and edgy. He becomes unrefined, emergent, without prescription and blueprints.

Remember John the Baptist? The way of the Lord is made in the wilderness, in the yet-to-be developed geography. Oh, but don’t worry. The theologians and church folks will come behind and domesticate the terrain, develop, organize, build, set in order. But God, doing as he will, frequents the fringe of development and frontier, seemingly most present where things are just becoming – out where things are not-yet, still unpredictable – wilderness.

The wilderness prescribes nothing for God, offers no limitations, does not disallow. The wilderness permits God liberty to be fantastical in imagination, wild with desire, powerful in his will. The wilderness can be an uncultivated twisted growth of tangled untamed that daunts more civilized hearts. But, you see, he isn’t so civilized. He is more wild than domesticated and the wilderness invites God to be himself.

Out of the wilderness he calls his deliverers. Out of the wilderness he claims a people for his own. There he tempers his own. His more notable servants he tends to bring by way of the wilderness: Abraham’s journeys, Moses, the children of Israel, David, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul in Arabia, John the Revelator on a deserted island.

God seems to allow our buildings (see David’s exchange with God concerning building the temple - 2 Samuel 1:1-13) but do you think God rather preferred the portable tabernacle in the wilderness? Always ready for a move from one day to the next – unpredictability.

What Would God Do If He Did Whatever He Wanted To Do? - Part 1

2010-03-02T06:54:00.003-05:00

“Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.”Mark 6:5 (NKJ)

What would God do if he did whatever he wanted to do? What if we didn’t resist him with unbelief, cynicism, doubt, fear? What would he do if he did what he wanted to do?
Certainly he may come to church. But he has a tendency to misbehave in church. He contradicts some traditions, disorders the furniture, ruins the bake sale. He has put a beating on a few people – in church. When he comes he rocks the boat. He looks to see what you put in the offering; he challenges your theology, messes with your hermeneutic.

What if we let him out of the theological parameters we have fixed for him? Would he shock or offend us? Would he get beyond what we understand? And you can’t leave him alone. He might talk to the wrong people (e.g., the woman at the well, eating with publicans and sinners, etc.). If past behavior is any predictor of the future, he will misbehave. He will likely make us all uncomfortable.

Would he do that? Look, when you hear someone who says things like, “God wouldn’t do such and such” or “God wouldn’t use such and such a person”, this is usually someone who hasn’t seen God unrestricted. Some generous soul suggested we allow God a longer chain. What we ought to do is let him off the leash. It’s all over then.

Do we ask for revival because we are afraid to ask God to do what he really wants to do? We ask for revival (i.e., re-vive), to bring to life what was dead or to re-do an old thing. But God, doing as he pleases, may not choose revival or restoration. Why restore what has failed? No. Be sure, it may not revival or restoration he has in mind so much as a new morning.

We take his mercies from a Tupperware bowl or a zip-lock bag - you know, leftover God. Leftover God is safe. Leftover God is predictable. We know the routine. But it is not leftovers he has for you. His mercies are new every morning. New - not revived. Make no mistake, he doesn’t wish to revive so much as to reform (or re-form) – to make different. We want the good-ole-days of the past; he anticipates a good new day. He is not caught in paralytic nostalgia. We imagine God forlorn, reminiscent of the past. In reality he is into the present and the future.

What would he do if he did whatever he wanted to do? Would he provide thirst-quenching water to lesbians and gays? Would he woo the hearts of your neighbors? He might startle you, misbehave, surprise you, embrace you, convict you, whisper your name. He may just put on a show you have never seen before. He may leave you in the dark. He’ll save people you wouldn’t talk to, and love you all the while. If God does what he wants to do, anticipate incomprehensible redemption.

2010-02-13T08:28:00.002-05:00

Relationship vs. Research - Part 5

2010-02-13T08:00:00.003-05:00

God desires a love relationship with you that gets further and deeper than the commandments. Behavior modification is not an end in itself. We may restrain ourselves more than the commandments, due to love. It is not about the checklist.

Remember the rich young ruler who kept the commandments but still lacked something? Remember Paul the apostle who claimed to be perfect concerning the law yet did not know Christ? We certainly do need to be reminded of boundaries and proper behavior. We need occasional encouragement toward forbearance. A checklist may prove helpful, but covering the points on a checklist with mere mechanical precision may be done purely mechanically or perfunctorily. If there are valid points on the checklist, they serve to facilitate the relationship. The relationship does not serve the checklist. Yes, we need dos and don’ts. Without a ditch on either side of the road we might forget the road. Regulations may serve to keep us from death but life is in the relationship.

Knowing God requires more than cerebral engagement and playing by the rules. It is a total engagement of the person. It is an engagement of the mind, but an engagement of the heart as well. It includes the body, the soul, our feelings etc. All of these must join together for a synthesis of complete personhood in pursuit of the One who pursues us completely. To know God is not to be up to speed on the divine data. To know God is to experience and interact with God by way of the whole person. We must experience God. And having experienced God by way of the whole person, there is required a response by the whole person. Having touched and having been touched, what will we now do?

Are we not accountable for what we experience? What will we do in response? Is a reciprocal response not due? Or do we count the experience like one more tourist attraction on a road trip? - Snap a picture or two, buy a souvenir and be on our way. Do we take it in like we might in the sighting of a falling star? - A moment of surprise followed by a wish and soon forget.

Our God is making himself known to us. There is a move in our direction. Will we believe and respond? We must be responsive and obedient. Our experience in God should be accountable to the written Word but we must be attentive to the living Word as God reaches for us in love today. To know his love is to experience his love, to be affected by his love. Our experience drives who we are, what we know and what we do. And there is a dynamic quality to all this which makes it more like an electrical storm than a controlled experiment.

In all of this God will endeavor to break free from our presuppositions. Rather, he would free us from presuppositions. The predictability we demand puts us in a box more than it confines the Almighty. It restrains our experience of him. Do you sense a call to the unfamiliar? Do you sense his deep calling you deeper? Have you noticed he is waiting on you? Will you respond? And if so, will you risk unguarded openness and vulnerability?

Can one be invulnerable and in deep love relationship simultaneously? Can one know without really being known? Is this what Genesis is getting at describing Adam as naked before the fall? He walked with God in complete vulnerability. It was after his sin that Adam covers himself. The relationship was broken. What if Adam had not covered himself? What if we did not cover ourselves, i.e., we did not come to God with less than complete vulnerability? To reduce our relationship with God to a mere act of reason is to cover ourselves. Eventually, something has to die for us to remain covered. Instead of really pursuing God, Adam was found hiding. If we pursue God without vulnerable openness before him, in actuality, are we not hiding as well? In our well-intentioned academic or reason-based pursuit of the Holy One, is God not responding, “Where are you?"

Relationship vs. Research - Part 4

2009-12-26T13:49:00.002-05:00

We take our religion with clear-cut codes and measures. We like religion that quickly satisfies every question with easy answers and neatly reduces every issue, question and debate to a fixed position. We would have religion that requires little thought or deliberation. We don’t want the responsibility of a living, breathing, unpredictable relationship on our hands that challenges our theological equations.

Religion is managed, controlled and predictable; especially religion with lots of regulations. Is this is why we often choose regulations over relationship? We know what to expect with regulations – no surprises. Religion affords predictable patterns, uniforms and uniformity. Relationship allows for the unanticipated. A religion of regulations accommodates death. Relationship makes room for life.

Why did some early Christians seem to have difficulty letting go of the Law? We tend to have the idea they were seeking to be delivered from the oppressiveness of the Law, but in part they clung to it. Why? - Predictability with no surprise seems to make no demands on faith.

Armed with a list of regulations, I can read the Bible and pray in private. I just need to get the information in my head. It is mere cerebral engagement. But when these black and white, clear-cut, plainly written codes are joined with God’s intent to put his Law on our hearts (e.g., Heb. 8:10), there is a new dynamic - enters ambiguity and the need for discernment, which requires something more than private Bible study. Now faith is required for discerning truth. And messier still, relationship is required – relationship not only with God, but with others who too have hearts of writ.

Discerning truth requires more than rigid adherence to regulation. Now faith is necessary for truth to be known. Now relationship is required, with dialogue, fellowship, praying and reading with others for discernment. If the Law is written on hearts of flesh, then hearts of flesh must be known to know the Law. Is God saying that our relationship with him is affected by our relationship with others?

Give me a plain list of regulations and codes, be they ever so difficult, and I will not have to be in close relationship with others. It becomes my Bible and my prayer time. It will be like the words of a country song, “Me and Jesus got our own thing goin’. We don’t need anybody to tell us what it’s all about.”

With hearts of flesh as a medium, relationship and dialogue are required. Now, for example, as a North American male, I must begin to see through the eyes of North American females to hear the Word of the Lord. Have I heard the Word of the Lord if I don’t know how the poor see and read the Word? Now dialogue is required with Latin American saints and believers in West African, and the church in Indonesia. I must be in relationship with believers in denominations apart from my own. You and I have no monopoly on truth. God has so arranged things, that in order to be well rounded in his Word, we must do so by way of relationship.

Relashionship vs. Research - Part 3

2009-11-04T18:49:00.003-05:00

Relationship vs. Research – Part 3

The modern mind insists on a God less than infinite. What is over and above comprehension is suspect. While his transcendence should leave us in awe and worship, we rather choose offense and rational objection. When we ought to be relieved there is something bigger than us, we choose to relieve the divine of majesty, and what is not subject to our rationality is labeled irrational.

But in this information age with instant access everything; Wi-Fi, Twitter, Facebook, etc., we get the down load if you will, without personal soulful investment. Facebook requires no face to face. We seem more connected, but we do this all without the risk of intimacy. I can edit my online profile and reveal what I will about myself while selectively withholding the rest. This is convenient but not intimate. This is the same kind of relationship we want with God, but God is having none of it. He is in your face more than into Facebook. He will read your private mail. He wants to get at what doesn’t make your profile. He wants to talk about what doesn’t make your blog.

I can check my e-mail at my convenience, but genuine relationship with God has no such guarded convenience. There are unexpected encounters. He will show up unannounced. He’ll barge in. He’ll stop by without an appointment. He will stop by when you are busy and do so with intent. He presumes upon our schedules with untimely interruptions. Real relationship interrupts your routine.

Authentic relationship is not without affected emotions, and these emotions are not always compatible with cold rational, objective distance, or disinterested detachment. Disaffected rational may serve the laboratory, but will not do much for a love story. There is a certain un-manipulated dialectical dynamic, innate to genuine organic relationship. We would impose a certain amount of anticipated order. But can genuine relationship be efficiently managed? It seems closer to corralling a bunch of monkeys. Real relationship requires some relinquishing of personal control. The relationship takes on a life of its own. But with this release of control often comes a sense freedom that can be refreshing.

God will get into your business. He will concern himself with seeming trifles, like the words you use, attitudes you possess, the hidden thoughts and feelings we choose not to publish. He will get at your thought life. “It’s nobody’s business”, you say. But he makes it his business.

Who is this God who thinks he owns it all? Who is this God who insists on being so personal? Rather than contenting himself with MySpace, he gets into my space. He gets a little too close for comfort and seems presumptuous about it all. Who is this God who created all that is and why does he care to have such intimacy with you and me?

Relationship vs. Research - Part 2

2009-10-26T20:00:00.002-04:00

We can pursue God by way of his written Word but should we approach the scriptures like we might a textbook? Rather than being a static archival manuscript, scripture is living. It is Spirit-given and to be received it must be done so via the Spirit. As we open our hearts and souls while looking into scripture, we find someone looking back at us. We should not presume to examine scripture if we do not offer ourselves to scripture for examination. The Word is more than data. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We do not interpret the text so much as the text interprets us.
Initial vulnerability will require more vulnerability. Deep will call to deep. This approach to scripture is dangerous because such an encounter demands a response and we cannot remain unchanged without doing so in disobedience. But it is a wonderfully indescribable moment when first we discover the written Word to be more than a static historical document.
When we find it to be alive we are startled with shock and amazement. There is a resonance made apparent between the now and the eternal, between our spirit and his. The vulnerability invested pays off big and there comes a knowing that this intimacy is worth the risk. That is to say, we trust the one who is seeing us unveiled. In this moment of seeing and being seen, we are enlivened. In that moment we are powerfully alive and the God of scripture animates its pages, comes off the page, loosed from the cage of critical reasoning. He is alive. We are alive. Suddenly so many possibilities now seem evident.
Where has this God been? How has this Word been so neglected? How has this relationship been shelved for rhetoric? The emanating life force is astounding. It is alive. I feel it in me as the words of Jesus become an experiential reality, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (Jn 15:4) NKJ
Oh, to be completely given to this moment, never to retreat into myself again, but ever make my retreat in him.
Don’t domesticate this. Don’t try to refine this. Don’t take a weed-eater, an edger or a hedge trimmer to this relationship. This encounter can abide the want of a sharp-edged doctrinal definition. Don’t sterilize this wild moment. Let the reader read and be read. Let the Creator create. Let the Giver give without our presuming restraints. If we offer our lives uninhibited, we will know him to be truly alive and alive in us. Let him come off the page, out of the outline, off the timeline. Give yourself to this moment of proleptic advantage. Let God out of the laboratory and he will not only prove himself alive but will take you with him in a marvelous experiential knowing of life.

Relationship vs. Research

2009-10-17T08:51:00.001-04:00

God offers himself in terms of relationship. We rather like to believe he offers an academic discipline. Relationship requires personal risk and investment of soul. God lends himself in relationship but we approach him in terms of research. We would read up on God and get the facts. We would know about God. In fact, there is no lack of motivation here. We are genuinely curious and interested in learning about him.
Systematic theology is a pleasant and agreeable thing to us because it suggests God can be approached and understood systematically. This is comforting. We can master God if he is systematic. We will break him down into parts and subparts then systematically digest him. And if he can be systematically digested, he is relieved of divine mystery while we are released from obligation to a faith-based approach to God.
Faith seems less concrete. It’s like holding on to a wet bar of soap. One must hold on, but with less than absolute containment. Faith seems more fluid than fact-based investigation. Faith allows for unanswered questions, logical contradictions, dichotomy. Reason insists on resolution while relationship can abide enduring dialectical tension. Cool-headed observation at arm’s length offers a supposed and venerated objectivity, but personal engagement and vulnerability are required for relationship.
Factual analysis seems less risky than faith. Rational inquiry is not as sticky as the vulnerability required for relationship. If I observe God with emotional distance I can protect my heart. I can suppress the engagement of subjective feelings. I cannot be hurt (and I cannot be helped). I look, but I will not be looked upon. I investigate, but will not be investigated. I judge, but will not be judged. I am looking for answers, but I am not honest about my questions. I am dishonest in my pursuit of the Holy because honest pursuit requires an openness of self which offends my sense of privacy and self-preservation. Open my heart in pursuit of a lover? Open my heart with obvious desire clouding objective thinking? And if I am open, can’t I be hurt?

If I really want to know God, I must brave the risk of vulnerable transparency and be prepared for the unexpected.

One for the Tabernacle of the Sun

2009-10-11T06:44:00.000-04:00

There is little distance between God and his earth. He is on hand, on sight, if seemingly out of sight.Though some would confine him there, his presence is not exclusive to the church house. Like a young child with lungs filled with air and eyes filled with wonder, he can’t stay there. He’s one for the tabernacle of the sun and walks the “big lonesome”. If he wore shoes they would be hiking shoes. He’s the outdoor type, sports a healthy grin, has a hearty laugh – likes to touch you when he talks. He looks into your eyes, your soul, lets you finish your sentences and speak from your un-gathered thoughts.

Maintaining little obligation to be a particular way for you, he is who he is and he is likable. He’s got an appetite and uses his hands. He’s got good stories. He is right there on the surface but too deep to sound. He’s got an office, but it’s hard to catch him there. He prefers the outside of the cage. Of course He doesn’t sleep, but if he did I bet he would sleep with the windows open. And if he slept, I’m thinking he would like camping out.

He craves life for us, inviting us not only live, but live vigorously. “Engage life”, he seems to say, though life spots few guarantees other than this: engagement is better than disengagement. So, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. This is not to suggest foolish carelessness, but if you would get on with life, you are likely to get a little of life on you, so don't wear white pants. Be less tentative. Jump in. It will not begin sooner. Remember the adage, “Fate usually dances with someone already on the dance floor”.

Unfortunately, we are over domesticated as kids. It is especially unfortunate for church kids who are domesticated with an oppressive spirituality that says, “Connect with the Giver of life, but stay disconnected with life itself”, as if life and the Giver of life were antithetical. But the child has a God-given desire to play outside, climb, run, throw something, act, explore. The child (and the adult) hear the call of life summon, “Come experience”. But having been taught to ignore this incitement to life we disassociate it with God, believing that to be fully engaged in life, we must do so apart from God. We sense that God must be a churchy someone, a starchy Sunday personality, parenthetical to life.

But he is not parenthetical to life. He is life. Life was his idea. It was his dream that you would live life heartily without a dualistic sense or tentative reluctance and second guessing. Respond positively and purposefully to his invitation or be careful that supposed starchy someone doesn’t loosen his collar, pull off his tie and pop you with it.

2009-10-11T06:33:00.000-04:00

Elusive God

2009-09-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

Elusive God, so near to me, so distant. I sense your immediate presence and yet strain to find you. Ever in the room but where? Is that you next to me? Is that you confronting me, comforting me? I want to embrace you but where are you? Familiar voice in my spirit, constant companion since my youth. Everywhere and nowhere. All things and nothing. Unconfined, unresolved, undefined, open-ended. The familiar friend I've yet to see. I feel you. I want to see you. I want to look into your eyes. I want to feel your hand upon my shoulder. Hints of you always.

I've never seen your eyes but I've looked into the clear innocent eyes of a child - God must be near by. I hear the delightful giggle of a toddler - God must be good. The misty morning, birdsong, the smell of bread baking - there is a God.

And if I want to know him, is this not in correspondence to his determinant will? Is my desire evidence of his existence? If so my desire is evidence of his eminence. Surely God exists, but what is more, he desires to be known. He wants to be sought after. He wants to be wanted. He is quarry that we might pursue. His elusiveness is indicative of his desire to be sought.

"Do you want me? Do you love me? Do you desire me? - Pursue me", he seems to say. "I am found by those who seek, possessed by those who pursue. Pursue me, but get beyond the narrow parameters you have fixed for me. Let the pursuit be not confined to the prayer closet or the church building. These cannot contain me. I am life. I am all of life. I am no indoor deity. My cheeks are sun-parched, I have calloused hands. My feet know the rocky places. The dew is in my hair. My eyes are squinted. I am out and about, not some soft king on a cushioned throne confined to the shelter of a pastel palace. No pillowed pontiff, no pale potentate. I am not too delicate for dust and dirt. I am robust and game. I breathe anticipation. I am eager, desirous. I scheme, I plan, I am powerful. I am wisdom and youthful. Life is in me. I am eager with life. I am vibrancy itself. My desire and passion burn. I take in the day. I bend the bow. My aim is on. I laugh heartily. I am swift. I rush upon the battle."

God is mystery. God is elusive. God is worth the pursuit.

The Frontiersman

2009-09-19T21:44:00.000-04:00

I see him walking the frothy waves. In the swell he stands. I want to follow – he calls me there. It is frightening. He abides on the fringes, forever pressing into some undeveloped wilderness somewhere.

He is a frontiersman – not following a path so much as making one. He is a trailblazer, comfortable with few guarantees and the uncertain. If you follow, you also must abide some unresolved tensions, dichotomies, paradox, the unsure.

He travels light, can turn on a dime, pull-up camp in a wink. I follow, but he tries me. Is he trying to discourage me? But I can’t turn back. Having lived with him in the uncontrolled environment and having experienced undomesticated open places, how do I go back?

There is something in a spartan lifestyle, living off the land with few guarantees. I am leaner now, more alert, quicker, closer to creation. I feel a deeper connection with life and the created world. What did God mean when he created the vastness?

Part of me remembers the comforts of domesticated life, the convenience of the predictable. I miss the well worn and the familiar, but would I trade the new liveness for the old deadness? It was so easy – boring, but easy.

He calls me to press yet farther into the frontier, to breach uncharted, undiscovered, unreported places. I am so alive now, but atrophy and the former soft life draw with promise of safety and certainty.

He is a frontiersman. And to follow him, at least to follow closely and immediately, I must be a frontiersman as well. To be so, by necessity requires the relinquishing of certain comforts and luxuries. The reward is to see what few will ever see, to experience unprocessed possibilities, to be awed by unprepared, un-distilled beauty – to have eyes that vision what might be. But someone has to blaze a trail and someone has to follow the trailblazer.

He is calling me again.