God: The Unreliable Genie

Jon Acuff, who writes the fantastic blog Stuff Christians Like put up a post that really resonated with me recently. He talked about the fact that when he has troubles or issues in his life, he wants God to give him a present that will fix it. Instead, God gives his presence in the midst of the trouble.

As I look back over the past year of my life, I totally got what he is saying here.

I began looking for a way to leave the corporate job that I don't care for over a year ago. Sometime in February last year, I had a powerful event where God poured out his Spirit on me in a new and fresh way.

I mistakenly thought this was a signal that all my dreams and desires were about to be fulfilled.

As I had to keep making the long commute everyday to a desk where I didn't want to sit, I began to grow impatient and frustrated with God.

"Why would you give me passion and your Holy Spirit if I'm just going to keep living this meaningless corporate existence" was the attitude that began to pervade my thoughts.

God, it seemed, was cruelly taunting me.

But I eventually began to realize what Acuff is referring to. God isn't a genie. He isn't looking for wishes to grant. And he isn't looking to see what he is getting out of you.

A friend of mine, Zach Neese, wrote a book recently called How to Worship a King, which has this statement:

"God didn't create you so that He could use you. He created you so that He could know you."

I worry so often that I'm wasting my years at a corporate job, so when I come to God, I've already got a grievance against him. But I don't think he sees it that way at all. My job isn't a problem that is #15,987,446 on his list of things to do.

My purpose in this life isn't to achieve enough to be able to stand up against everyone else's resume.

What in David's life qualified him to be a king? What in Peter's background prepared him to be a foundational pillar of Christianity? What did Gideon do that earned him the title Mighty Man of Valor as he was hiding in the bottom of a well?

God's purposes for what we do are his own. They are inscrutable, and trying to decode or discern our path is not only impossible, it leads to frustration, as it did with me.

As I got more and more caught up in what God "wasn't doing", his presence faded in my life. He gave me a wonderful gift and I didn't appreciate it for what it was, only for where I thought it would take me.

I've had to spend quite a bit of time getting rid of my attitude and seeking God's presence in my life again not as a means to an end, but as the most wonderful end in itself.

I mean, seriously, God wants me to know him? He wants to invite me into his presence so I can simply be changed and filled by his Spirit?

I'm not back to where I was a year ago yet, but I'm getting there. And I'm grateful to have screwed up yet again, to find that God's way truly is best.

Heretics

I read a book in the past week or so called Heretics by Jonathan Wright. It reviews the fracturing of Christianity over the past two millenia.

It also taught me a new word: adiaphorism, which is the discipline of determining what matters of theology and doctrine are critical versus those that are non-critical to salvation.

I love this word. I hate it when we in Christianity try to carve out our own little kingdom and claim that it’s where Jesus really lives. It’s easy to look at denominations and shake our head and accuse them of this, but I also think we in evangelical/non-denominational Christianity are really bad about this.  Maybe even worse.  Instead of a whole denomination thinking it’s the only one really getting it right, you can find each individual church either outright believing this, or showing through their actions that they believe this.

Christianity was never meant to be an institution, and when it is run that way, it’s a disaster.

Notice that Jesus never said “Hey guys - when I’m gone, Peter’s in charge” or “John is now Vice-Messiah”?

It was that each individual believer would be filled with the Holy Spirit and given a mandate: go and make disciples.

Not disciples of ourselves. There should never be a “church of people who agree with everything you say”. Disciples of Jesus.

The Christianity we have now is full of politics. Being a disciple of Jesus and seeking power and control is simply not compatible. This is exactly what Jesus was trying to communicate when he washed the disciples feet.

The Body of Christ isn’t God’s business, it’s his family. We’ve got to stop allowing pastors and leaders to be CEOs of local franchises, and instead seek fathers.

My point in all this is that there are some truths that are non-negotiable within the Christian faith. Jesus is the Son of God. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. He rose from the dead and will return to judge all people. He is theonly way to God the Father.

Beyond that, is it truly worth arguing and fighting over every viewpoint and detail?

Let us take to heart the words of the 17th century Croatian Archbishop Marco Antonio de Dominis: “Unity in necessary things; liberty in doubtful things; charity in all things”

Rather than continuing to draw lines in the sand, let us seek the ties that bind.

How To Have An Unhealthy Church

I’ve learned something about being in a community recently: that if a group of people aren’t fighting together for something, they’ll end up fighting each other. People need a purpose. They need a goal. If you don’t give them one, they will pick one for themselves.

We all need challenges to overcome in life, mountains to climb.

I have signed up for 3 races this summer: The Xterra EX2 Off-road Triathlon, the Mid-Atlantic Tough Mudder, and the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan.

Somebody asked me recently why I participate in these crazy events.

The reason is because I can only grow if I challenge myself. I only get stronger and faster when I must in order to overcome challenges that are greater than I can handle today.

I do it because I want to find my limits, and then destroy them.

When I think about a church community, I think about one of those great ancient galley ships that used dozens or hundreds of people rowing as their propulsion. Momentarily setting aside the fact that the people who worked in them were normally slaves, imagine that your church is one of those ships.

What would happen if everybody just set their own agenda? Rowed when they wanted, however they wanted? At best, the ship would meander in circles, never actually getting anywhere.

If half the crew wanted to go forward and he other half wanted to go backwards, the ship would literally just spin in circles. People on the boat may mistake the motion for progress, but the reality is they’re all just wasting energy. When they wearily recognize all their effort has been for naught, they will naturally start looking for other people to blame. Hello, church split.

The way it reaches its destination is by everyone rowing together, as one person with some guidance from leadership

Without a destination, you’ll never go anywhere.

Without a purpose, you won’t do anything that isn’t comfortable or easy.

Just like I set race challenges for myself, does your church have challenges? Is everyone committed to these challenges? Are these challenges making a difference?

In other words, if your church closed down and never met again, would there be negative consequences, other than you not getting to see people you’re friendly with?

If you want an unhealthy church, don’t have goals. Don’t have a purpose that everybody in the congregation is aware of and given the opportunity to participate in. Just float in the river of existence, dealing with the crises that will inevitably pop up when people starting trying to paddle in different directions.

If you follow that simple direction, your church is sure to be unhealthy, meaningless and eventually die.

Getting Your Dream Job

You’re not going to want to hear this, but: God is not a way to pass tests you haven’t studied for.

God is not a way to get money you haven’t earned.

God is not a way to get your dream job without working for it.

“God has a plan for you” is something we hear so often, we can forget that we’re actually supposed to work for what we get.

The fact that you are a son/daughter of the king doesn’t mean that you can have whatever you want without earning it.

Whether you’re in school or you already have a family and work full time, you’re probably interested in working at your dream job.

Nobody wants to have to work at a job they don’t like in order to provide for themselves or their family.

Nobody dreams of getting a job that they have no passion for; where you feel like your time is being wasted on meaningless tasks.

We want to feel like we are accomplishing our purpose in our work, that we are using our God given gifts and abilities on a regular basis.

So when we hear, repeatedly, that God has a plan for our life from pastors and friends and family; and when we hear that we are a son/daughter of the king, it’s easy to start believing that God owes us a job that is fulfilling and that we have passion for.

You realize that he gave you passion and abilities in certain areas, so now it’s his responsibility to put you in a place where you can use them.

He equipped you and he called you, so now he owes you.

I call this attitude “Christian entitlement”.

I know that this world is temporary and one day it will roll up like a scroll as I will reign with God on high - therefore I am not required to live a life of meaningless tasks.

This attitude makes it hard when life presents us with unenjoyable tasks: going to a job that doesn’t seem like it’s important, taking a test to pass a class, etc.

But God isn’t a get-out-of-the-mundane-parts-of-life free card.

Do you want to work at your dream job? Then go to school and learn how to do what that job requires. Pursue any and every opportunity you can find to gain experience in that field.

When you get a shot, work your butt off.

I see so many Christians who are sitting around waiting for God to ring their doorbell and escort them to the job of their dreams one day.

I also see a number of Christian men who have refused to work a full time job and provide for their family because ‘they don’t like the jobs that are available to them’. This disgusts me.

I have worked a job that I dislike for years to provide for my family, while also working part time in ministry (which I do like) AND getting my Master’s Degree so that I could find part time work in the field where I want a career so I can earn my way into a full time job (this is still ongoing).

My wife went back to get her Bachelor’s Degree (and her Master’s) while pregnant and caring for two little kids, one with special needs.

Being Christian doesn’t mean our lives should involve refusing to work hard in order to get where we want, it means we should work harder, knowing that it is by our effort that we show ourselves worthy of an opportunity.

Rather than saying ‘this life is just a play and I don’t need to take it seriously’, we must endeavor to take it more seriously, knowing that we only have one chance to please God in this life.

When Jesus talks about building treasure in heaven when we live on the earth, do we think he’s joking? Do we think laziness and being adverse to working hard is what he’s after?

When the Israelites entered the promised land, Judges 3:2 says God left several hostile nations in the area to teach their children warfare. God doesn’t want soft, lazy Christians. He wants tough, strong, conquering Christians.

He wants a people that know life is a bull and how to grab it by the horns. Grace is not God’s Lay-Z-Boy recliner for us to sit around in, it’s God’s energy drink, empowering us to take on challenges bigger than we are.

Do you want your dream job? Don’t wait for it. Work for it!

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Recommended additional resources on this topic:

Lessons From Leaving a Desk Job (relevantmagazine.com article)

Quitter by Jon Acuff

How To Be Emotionally Healthy

We are emotional creatures, there are no two ways about that. God created us in his image, and the scriptures frequently refer to how God feels: rejoicing, angry, frustrated, and grieved.

Look at Jesus: he wept, got angry, reacted with surprise, showed frustration, etc.

So as God created us with emotions, they are meant to be part of our lives. The goal of a healthy emotional state is not to become like Spock, with no emotional imput, only cold rational logic dictating our lives.

Think of your emotional state as a Rubik’s Cube.

When you are angry, or depressed, or lustful, or anxious, or any emotional state other than healthy, your emotional state is like a messed up Rubik’s Cube. No rhyme or reason, just total disarray.

Here’s the best way to not fix a Rubik’s Cube: ignore it. Toss it in the back of your sock drawer. It’s not going to get fixed that way, but at least you only have to see it every once in a while. It’s still a mess the whole time, but hey - fixing it would take time and effort. Who wants to spend that, am I right?!

There are underlying issues that are causing you to be depressed, or anxious, or lustful. You need to be willing to get alone, and spend some time exploring and examining your own thoughts and feelings. To pull out that Rubik’s Cube and start examining it, interacting with it, and adjusting it.  It’s going to be frustrating. At times you may feel that it will never be put together in the way it’s meant to exist, but one thing is for certain: you will never solve the puzzle without putting your hands on it.

Are you depressed because of your situation in life? Are you angry at your lack of control? Do you have doubts about God or his goodness that you’re suppressing instead of dealing with?

Are you lusting uncontrollably because of a need for acceptance? Are there actions that you are taking that you need to cut off in order to get healthy?

Until you go in search of these underlying issues that are causing your emotions, they will stay hidden and continue to cause your emotional state to be completely out of whack.

If you’re not the kind of person that can be impartially introspective, a trained counselor can help guide you in that process. Or maybe you have a friend who is willing and able to tell you things that you have a blind spot to.

Regardless, the fear of what you might find once you go digging in your own soul must be overcome. We cannot be so afraid of looking in a mirror that we never do it. How can we begin to correct problems if we refuse to really and truly see them?

As a Christian, I strongly believe the scriptures provide an excellent source of objective input and that the Holy Spirit himself wants to help us in such inner journeys of discovery. As I said in a previous post, I found the scriptures to be much more beneficial when I stopped reading them to be ‘right’, and I started reading them to be changed.

Introspection, in my opinion, is the most valuable tool in spiritual and emotional development.

Now, once you have spent the time necessary to arrange your Rubik’s Cube of emotions, it’s tempting to sit back and look at how nice and neat and organized it is.

But what you need to realize is that it isn’t going to simply remain that way.

As you go through life, your carry your emotional Rubik’s Cube with you everywhere you go.

People will often try (and sometimes succeed) to grab it and mess it up. You get cut off in traffic. A friend betrays you. You find out that your pastor has been stealing funds from the church. Your boss/teacher chews you out. There’s a death of a close friend or family member.

Suddenly, your cube is out of alignment again. After all the work you put in getting it in order, it could be tempting to say ‘enough!’ and throw it back into the sock drawer.

This won’t help. This puzzle, this cube - it will be with us for the rest of our lives. But just as handing a real Rubik’s Cube will get easier with experience, so too will handing your emotional health. Once you find the place that your emotional balance point exists, it will be easier to get back to it.

There will be times that everything falls apart. But you will be able to pick up the pieces and put it all back together, as long as you don’t quit on yourself.

Don’t depend on other people to do this for you. If every time you turn into a mess you look for somebody to pull you back together, you’ll never be able to handle your emotions. I’m not saying that you can never go to a friend for support - I absolutely think that’s good. But you can’t expect them to “make it all better”. After you get some comfort or encouragement, go be alone. Work through your feelings and thoughts.

And when somebody comes to you in an emotional mess, love them, listen to them; then encourage them to work through it themselves. (Note: if this person says or in any way indicates that will hurt themselves or somebody else, get them professional help immediately. It could be a ploy to manipulate you into babying them, but you don’t screw around with a situation like that. Don’t enable them by coddling them, but do not just cut them loose.)

The best way to become emotionally crippled is by letting other people determine your emotional health. We are social creatures, and we must work to build community, and that will be difficult on us emotionally, but we must learn to handle these challenges by growing and maturing - and being able to deal with our own emotions is an essential part of that.

Get alone with yourself. Delve into the tempest. Stare into the abyss of your soul, and don’t be afraid as it stares back, because you’re not alone. Jesus heals the broken hearted and frees the captive. You just have to be willing to open the door.

Why Don't We See The Book Of Acts Happening Today?

I’m reading through Acts again, which always raises questions in me regarding modern day ministry. In the New Testament, Jesus did signs and wonders to confirm that his message was from God.

At one point, in his attempt to engender faith from some Pharisees, Jesus says, “even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:38)

Peter used the healing of the beggar at the temple as a platform to launch into the preaching of the gospel, and it was because of that miracle that the Sanhedrin couldn’t severely punish him. They couldn’t deny it. (Acts 3)

In Acts 5, the scriptures say that “the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people” (verse 12), and that because of this, many people believed in Jesus and joined the church - to the point that the religious leaders had to attack the apostles in an attempt to stop their momentum.

Later in Acts, we read that as Paul and Barnabas shared the message of the gospel in Iconium, the Lord “confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders” (Acts 14:3).

I wonder why nothing quite as spectacular as what we see in Acts seems to occur today (speaking of America), where signs and wonders accompanied the message of the Gospel? Is our message so wrong or weak that the signs and wonders don’t come? Is it because we’re a nation/generation demanding a sign out of arrogance and selfishness (a la Matthew 12:38)? Am I lacking faith or the ability to understand God’s directions?

I really don’t know. But I also know that people who are only ever seeking mystical manifestation of God’s presence worry me. Is a “glory cloud” the kind of thing we’re after? If you tell somebody that it seemed a little hazy at church last night, is that the coming of the kingdom of God?

I’m not trying to point fingers at anybody else without first and foremost pointing them at myself.

Who’s got two thumbs and is trying to figure out how to be a part of ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done’? This guy.

And because I have no idea how to include signs and wonders into my message, I focus on the things I do understand: That God is in the business of changing - transforming - lives for the better.

I know he still binds up broken hearts. I know he still gives hope and joy to the downtrodden.  But am I just functioning this way out of weakness and defeat? Is this how God wants me/us to work in the world? All message and no demonstrations of proof that this message is true?

I know that the bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, but I also see Jesus saying that the apostles couldn’t fast while he was with them, but they would do so when he was gone.

When Jesus sent out the 70 as emissaries, he instructed them to take no bag or extra tunic, but in Luke 22:35, he says that now they should not only take a purse, but a bag and that they need to get a sword.

In John 9:4-5 he says, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

So when Jesus was on earth, did he take the brunt, the weight of all the things that we now must bear?

Why did Jesus indicate things would be different after he left?  Are we simply seeing the result of changing realities that we can’t fight against?

But back to Acts: What about Philip? The bible says that great signs and miracles are occurring through Phillip during his ministry (Acts 8:13), yet the apostles send Peter and John to Samaria and it is only when their hands are laid on people that they receive the Holy Spirit.

Why didn’t that happen through Phillip?

Why were people laying in the streets of Jerusalem in the hopes that Peter’s shadow might touch them (Acts 5:15)? There were thousands of believers in Jerusalem by this point, why weren’t the same miracles occurring at their touch?

I don’t believe the dispensational theology that says miracles were something God did through the apostles and he doesn’t do that any more. I’ve experienced the power of God and seen the transformations he can bring forth. God has allowed me to witness and participate in miraculous events, and those signs have strengthened my faith.

I don’t have answers to this issue, only questions. Mostly about the ways I’m missing the mark. I know that I am the emissary of an all-powerful, loving God - but why should others believe me? Where’s the demonstration that he approves of my message?

In this world where everyone has more messages being aimed at them then ever before, I don’t want to be just one more voice clamoring for attention, feeling pressured to make grandiose claims in order to attract an audience.

I want to present the true gospel and figure out how to let God stand behind his own message.

What is the Right Way to Worship God?

In John 4, a woman asks Jesus where the right place to worship God is. Jesus, in his typical fashion, gives an answer that the woman isn't expecting.

He says, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)

Spirit and truth. I've thought about what this means. I understand that God is a spirit and I must worship him from my spirit, my soul...from within me. But what about truth? How do I worship God 'in truth'?

In that verse, truth is translated from the Greek word alētheia. It has the connotation of meaning ''in reality' or 'in fact'.

What I think Jesus is saying here is that we must worship God both in the spiritual reality where he exists and in the physical reality where we exist.

In our heart as well as with our hands.

From who we are and in what we do.

The issue, according to Jesus, isn't where you worship God, but how.

It's easy to get caught up in the mystical realities of a supernatural God, and I'm not going to say that's a bad thing. But I am going to say that we can't stop there.

I've heard many people express the desire for God to bring about 'More of you, less of me'. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure it's what God is after. God isn't trying to move us into oblivion as he takes over more and more. We're not just roadblocks in his way. He has called us to be full partners in his work and in his kingdom. He wants to fill us, not destroy us.

We are his work, not a hindrance to his purposes. You may think I'm being arrogant and acting a little too presumptuously. I assure you I am not. I say these things only because God clearly reveals them in the scriptures. I would agree that we don't deserve God's presence among us, or the freedom to invest our lives in him; but he not only makes it possible, he helps us to accomplish it.

But he has done all this so that we can be part of bringing his Kingdom and his will to this earth. He doesn't just want us getting happy off his gifts and his presence, he wants us to do something with them.

I think it's very possible to be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. And I would argue that you're forgetting to worship God in truth if you reach that point.

We are both in this world and also not of it. We must not run away from either of those truths. Because doing so would prevent us from worshiping God in the way Jesus said we ought.

Revenge

I watched season 2 of a show called Justified on DVD this past week. The show is anchored in powerful, well crafted story telling. It does have a fair bit of violence and language in it - so choose whether to watch it accordingly. (At one point in my life, I would not have watched a show with such material, or I at least would have felt guilty for it, but I’m in a different place now. Not more or less holy/sanctified, just different.)

Without giving spoilers, season two ends on a climax that deals with revenge. One character is pointing a gun at another character, debating whether they should pull the trigger as payback for certain actions.

In the dialogue of the scene, a third character is asking that the trigger not be pulled. This character tells the gun-holder “If you pull that trigger, your life is going to change forever…and not for the better.”

The thing about revenge is that, not only does it not heal a wound, it creates new ones: guilt over what you’ve done, and the injury to the other person.

If that person, or their family members decide to take revenge for what you did, you’re in a never ending cycle, perpetuating hurt and hate.

I started thinking about this in the context of what I read in a book written by Bishop Desmond Tutu called “No Future Without Forgiveness”. South Africa, divided and full of rage over the years of apartheid, where a white minority systematically oppressed a black majority, was attempting to enter into peaceful cohabitation. Many feared that the blacks would slaughter the whites in vengance.

But something alltogether different occured: The government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whereby crimes and attrocities on both sides (there were blacks who fought back with violence - and in war, terrible things always occur) could confess what they had done and avoid judicial punishment.

That’s right: if you said what you did, truthfully and completely, you were not held liable. People got to hear the facts about the death of their loved ones - how they died, who killed them, where the bodies were located, etc. Amazingly, this lead to a great deal of forgiveness.

People were tired of bloodshed. Most yearned for peace. Instead of dealing with skeletons in the closet and trying to pretend that they don’t exist, South Africa laid them to rest.

By ending the cycle of revenge, hurts could begin to heal. South Africa is far from perfect, but they have never descended into the genocidal civil war many expected.

Jesus said that loving people who love you back is easy. (Matthew 5:46)

The Children of God are called to love the wicked.  What a war we are called to fight when our weapons are love, mercy and grace.

You may think this is a great way to lose, but I look at leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who used patience and endurance to defeat tyrannical forces.

In Romans 12:19, Paul even says not to take revenge. That’s a job best left up to God. He knows when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t. Our job is to love, not settle scores.

Two Edged Sword

I used to read the bible to gain knowledge; to find the ways scripture confirmed that my theology is correct. Now, I read it to be changed. The book of Hebrews describes the Word of God thusly: “[It] is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12)

I so often used the scripture as a weapon against other believers, in order to show that I was right and they were wrong.

I know many believers who feel that they are the only ones who really, truly understand the character of God. That they have discovered the sacred secrets hidden in the scriptures.  And they have the theology and proof texts ready to prove it.

I’ve realized that the word of God is actually a weapon meant to be used on myself.

I love the song “The War Inside” by Switchfoot. It talks about the fact that living this spiritual life has less to do with fighting “what’s out there”, and more to do with what is inside of us. Here’s part of the chorus.

I am the war inside

I am the battle line

I am the rising tide

I am the war I fight

N.T. Wright also talks about this issue in Evil and the Justice of God. The line between good and evil isn’t something that we look and and pick a side to stand on. It runs right down the middle of each of us.

Paul himself talks about this in Romans 7: “…when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind…”

Reading the Bible isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about looking in a mirror that shows me what I could be. What I should be, then letting God work to bring that person into existence.

I’m no longer interested in getting people to agree with me. Instead, I’m interested in being more like Jesus.

Incentives

Most people probably know the old proverb: You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Recently, I decided that I wanted my oldest daughter to read more books. She had winter break coming up, and I told her that I wanted her to read two books during the 10 days she would have off.

She wasn’t very enthusiastic about “having to” do all that reading. In the end, she only read one book, and it required a great deal of reminding and cajoling on my part.

I quickly realized that if I made reading into something that she was constantly being hounding to do, she’d learn to hate it. So I changed my course.

Instead, I decided that I needed to create an incentive that would get her into reading. I know once she gets into it, she’ll learn to love it. At 7 years old, I decided it was time to institute an allowance for her.

But unlike many households, she doesn’t get an allowance for her chores. Her chores are how she earns food and keep. I don’t pay her to handle her responsibilities.

Instead, I linked her allowance to reading. She earns 50 cents for every book she reads (I have to approve that it is long enough first - no less than 75 pages is my standard.)

She started reading every night, proudly announcing “fifty cents, please!” as soon as she finished yet another book and telling me all about what she had just read.

I wonder if we haven’t made living for Jesus more like a punishment than an incentive, and that’s why many people loathe Christianity and church life.

‘Accept Jesus or go to hell’ is an awful marketing pitch. It’s like me saying ‘read a book or you’ll be punished.’ My daughter would not want to read the book, and she would only do it at the last minute under threat of imminent punishment. Instead of loving to read, she would probably hate it.

However, I also think ‘Accept Jesus so that you will go to heaven’ is a terrible pitch. similar to the previous pitch, it puts all the emphasis on ‘the afterlife’ rather than the here and now. This essentially says ‘life is still gonna stink, but once you die, you’ll be happy forever!’

For me, one of the primary reasons to believe in Jesus is his promise and desire to bind up the broken-hearted in this life. To release people held captive in this life. To give sight to people who are blind. Today. Here. Now.

A more abundant life starting today, not when you’re dead.

God teaches us to live a life of love rather than strife. He teaches us to function with faith and hope rather than despair and meaninglessness. Not necessarily (or even usually) by changing our circumstances, but rather by changing us.

He makes us to be part of his family, his community, where we no longer need to compete and jostle for positions of prestige in order to gain more self worth.

I’m trying to remember this when I teach my teens at church. If you force somebody to do something, they’ll resent it. You must attract them. Allow them to leave if they want, without threats or insults.

Instead of coming up with better sales pitches for the life of faith in Jesus, perhaps we just need to do a better job of demonstrating it. Perhaps more people would be more drawn to the product if our smarmy sales tactics weren’t in the way.

The God Formula

We all know the story of Job. He has to deal with some pretty bad circumstances: losing everything and getting very sick. He has some friends that show up to comfort him and (very pointedly) try to fix his problems. The problem with Job’s friends is that they thought they understood God. They knew how God worked. They had the formula memorized.

If you live right, God gives you blessings.

If you live in an impure way, God will come against you with judgement.

Job lost his wealth, his family and his health. This meant God was angry with him; therefore Job was living sinfully.

Job’s friends were trying to help him: repent of your secret sin and God will forgive you! But Job was insistent that he had not sinned.

But his friends would not - could not - believe him. Because if what Job said was true, then everything they thought they knew about God would be wrong.

Listen to what the youngest of the friends says as he makes one final attempt to get Job to admit to his wicked ways: “Be assured that my words are not false; one perfect in knowledge is with you.” (Job 36:4)

In other words, “I can’t believe what you’re saying, because I know I’m right.”

I was struck when I read Elihu’s speech (Job 32-37) that it includes some portions that are almost identical to what God says later (for example, that he commands lightning and snow).

Job’s mistake was thinking that God had committed an error.

Elihu’s mistake (and the 3 other friends) was thinking he knew exactly what God was doing.

Job, knowing that he hadn’t brought these curses upon himself through foolish living, was forced to conclude that God’s sovereignty allowed him to act as he pleases, and the only viable choice of humanity is to accept that. As Job says it, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)

I’d love to pretend that Jobs friends were the last people to make this mistake, but when Jesus shows up, he tells the religious experts in his day that they have made the same mistake of making God into a formula which they understood.

“You [The Pharisees] diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

They thought they knew the formula, but when the the culmination of God’s design arrived, they didn’t recognize it in the least.  Jerusalem was destroyed because the time of God’s intervention arrived and they were blind to it. (Luke 19:44).

I think the fact that we think we have this whole God/Jesus/Bible thing down pat can turn us into monsters, too.

We have hundreds of different denominations (which are basically forbidden in 1 Corinthians 3) because we think all the other denominations are doing something wrong, and we are doing it right.

We spend so much time and energy bickering and in-fighting rather than fulfilling the purpose Jesus gave us. To be conduits of God’s Kingdom come and will being done on earth.

God cannot be put in a formula. He cannot be understood. He cannot be explained. We can only say the things he has told us to say. To speak of the things we see him do.

Paradoxically, it is only when we accept that we never fully know him that we can actually begin to connect with him in a greater way.

Socrates and The Oracle of Delphi

There’s a story about Socrates that I love. Let me quote what pbs.org says: After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.

His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning ‘a lover of wisdom’, soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.

Socrates thought that he couldn’t be the wisest man in Athens because he was conscious of how much he didn’t know. But it was that self awareness; the fact that he knew how much he didn’t know that actually made him wiser than the rest.

A couple years ago, I thought my knowledge of scriptures and the nature of God was vast and commanding. I had great confidence in my conclusions. As I worked through the program of my Master’s Degree, I began to discover that I was gaining more questions than answers.

I began to realize how much I didn’t understand, couldn’t explain, didn’t comprehend about God.

And I believe I have become much wiser than I once was. You’ll get a lot fewer definitive answers out of me these days. If you start a discussion about the nature of God, you’ll probably hear me asking lots of questions.

I’ve stopped pretending that I hold answers to the secrets of the universe, but I’d like to think I’ve started asking some of the right questions.

In Jesus' Name

I have made the decision to stop saying “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of all my prayers. Not because I believe that I shouldn’t pray in Jesus’ name, but because I believe that praying in Jesus’ name doesn’t mean slapping 3 words onto the end of whatever I say.

I watched a video by Francis Chan where he talked about this. We pray ‘I want, I want, I want, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme….In Jesus’ Name, Amen.’ and we call that praying in Jesus’ name.

I think that’s closer to taking the lord’s name in vain than it is praying in Jesus’ name.

The Seven Sons of Sceva (Acts 19) thought that they could toss Jesus’ name around in order to accomplish their own agenda. It didn’t turn out so well.

I’ve realized that I have spent most of my Christian life trying to get God to go along with what I wanted to do. I seem to forget that he is a lot smarter than I am. That I am the insignificant speck of dust and he is the infinite creator.

So these days, I have stopped tacking on the phrase “In Jesus’ Name” to all my prayers, and instead tried to learn to pray for the things he wants to do - forgiveness of sins committed against me; provision on a daily basis rather than an overabundance I can place my trust in; protection from the evil one - who is greater than me, but not greater than God; and for the coming of his kingdom and his will on this earth.

Rather than ‘how can I get what I want?’, my driving question is ‘how can I participate in what he is doing?’

Instead of saying that I’m praying in Jesus’ name, I’m actually trying to do it.

Shortcuts of Faith

There are no shortcuts in faith. You can’t get to resurrection without going through crucifixion. We have to go through the cross to get to new life. There’s no easy way, no way around it, no short cuts. And resurrection wasn’t to undo the crucifixion, it was to complete the process.

The scars Jesus got on the cross were still there after resurrection (John 20:27). They were badges of honor, not shameful at all.

We all have experiences in life that leave us scarred: death of a family member, illness, etc.

I don’t think God wants us to forget about them. I think the scars will always be there. They are a testament to the fact that God brought us through those times.

Not around them, or over them. Through them.

Peter Rollins talks at length in his book, Insurrection, about the Deus Ex Machina.  In ancient Greece, playwrights would sometimes find that they needed something to change in their script. Perhaps a character needed to die, or a character needed money that they couldn’t figure out how to obtain. So some playwrights would have an actor on ropes lower into the scene and simply make it occur. This character was God. Instead of having the skill to tell a logical, relate-able, moving story, they would simply use “God” to fix their problem. It was a sign of a poorly written play.

I think we tend to treat God this way, at least I know I do. I want out of my current job, so I beg God to just show up and change it. Rather than co-operating with the journey that will eventually lead me away from where I am, I demand an immediate change. (Having finished my degree and gotten some great opportunities to build my experience and resume in the area I want to work in, I can see the journey is happening. I just impatiently want it to happenfaster.)

I frequently view God as a way to get out of hard situations, but God wants to walk with me through them.  David didn’t say “Yea, though I can see the valley of death from where I’m at…”. He said “even as I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Sometimes life sucks. Those are the times when I learn how much God cares about me. When I am so needful and he stays with me. I demand and beg and plead for him to make the situation different, but he wants to be with me. To comfort me. To weep with me.  You can’t find a better friend than one who won’t abandon you when times get tough. Solomon said it this way: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17)

You find out who your friends are when it doesn’t benefit them to be around you. God gave us a family to stand with us when no one else would.

And God himself shows his greatness at times like this. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

He’s still in the business of loving us when we least deserve it. In being faithful when we are faithless. Because when the walk through the valley of the shadow of death is over, we’ll know that he really loves us. Not in some vague way, but in the way that he knows everything about us - especially how weak and selfish we are - and he still wants us to be his son or daughter. That his adoption is bourne of love, not obligation.

If we were to take shortcuts in faith, we would miss this lesson, which is the most important of them all.  We do not serve an unreliable genie, who occasionally grants wishes. We serve a loving God who draws closer to us when we need him most.

The Poison Pill

There’s an analogy about Jesus and Hell and Salvation that I’ve heard a number of times in my life: that people have been poisoned and they will die without the antidote. The poison is sin, death is hell and the antidote is salvation. So we seek to get people to pray the prayer of salvation in order that they would be saved from hell.

I don’t think this analogy is a very good one. Here’s why:

If I get bit by a snake, I’ll drink the antidote and the poison will be gone. Then I’ll go about my life the same way I did before I took the antidote.

Jesus isn’t a quick fix. You don’t pray a prayer of salvation and find that sin has disappeared and you just bide your time until heaven calls you home.

We stress the need for people to make a ‘decision for Jesus’. We see it as the determining factor on whether they end up in heaven or hell for eternity. We say things like ‘God will write your name in the book of life’ if you respond to the altar call.

Like God just has a holy excel spreadsheet and the only column next to each persons name is ‘Accepted Jesus’ with a yes or no in the field.

If I hurt somebody, and I tell them I’m sorry, than I walk away, was I really sorry? If I was really sorry, wouldn’t it show? Wouldn’t I try to make right what I caused to go wrong?

I don’t believe Jesus is after people who will just intellectually acknowledge that he is saviour. I believe he is after people who act like it.

Even Jesus gives an example that shows intellectual ascent isn’t what he or anybody else is after:

There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Matthew 21:28-31

The belief in God that the Pharisees had wasn’t the antidote to the “poison” of sin and the world.

And as James says, even the demons believe in God. They know Jesus was saviour. I don’t think the ‘antidote’ cured them.

What if I told you that you were poisoned, but that the antidote would cause you a great deal of pain? Would you still take it? You’d have to put some thought into it, right?

Because accepting Jesus means living a life of dying daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). It means that, at the minimum, you have to take up a cross (Matthew 10:38). It means living a life where you do the things you don’t want to do. (Romans 7:15).

How’s that for an antidote? Is that a quick, easy way to fix all your problems?

Jesus isn’t some snake oil cure all, but we make him out to be exactly that. Jesus hasn’t made my life easier. He’s made it better, but it isn’t without cost, and it certainly wasn’t some one-time thing.

Dual Citizenship

I started reading a book called You Lost Me by David Kinnaman today. It’s one of those books which is depressing to read because it presents truths that you wish didn’t exist. It’s about young adults who leave the church - and often their faith - behind because of how frustrated they are. The worst part is that their arguements are pretty darn valid. In the book, Kinnaman refers to an idea which the church promotes a lot: being in the world, not of it.

We’ve all heard the saying that we are “in this world, not of it” many times, I’m sure. It comes from Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17.

But I think when we in Church say it, we tend to have the idea that we need to add the word ‘but’. We are in this world BUT not of it. The obvious emphasis being that we need to remember the fact that we are above and beyond this valley of tears we call earth. We are looking forward to eternity in glory with the creator of all, the source of light and truth and love and peace! We just have to endure this nightmare a little while before we wake up and all is well.

And I think that’s the wrong mindset. In the prayer we refer to, Jesus says this: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” (John 17:15 - emphasis mine)

I think that instead of saying “In this world BUT not of it”, we should say that we are “In this world AND not of it”. We’re not trapped here in the previews, waiting for the movie to start. The movie has begun! God’s kingdom is here. God’s kingdom is now.

The two concepts of “in this world, not of it” are not either/or, they’re both/and!

Songs like “When I die / Hallelujah by and by / I’ll fly away” speak to an escapist mentality that clearly wasn’t the intention Jesus had for his followers.

Let’s not view this life as a prison sentence where we are waiting for our parole. Paul balanced these dueling ideas when he said “To live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

There wasn’t a “bad option” that he wanted to avoid. Both were good. Heaven AND earth. We are in this world AND not of it. Let’s not seek to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.

We must build relationships in this world to have an impact. And relationships mean seeing eye to eye with people, not looking down on them. We are in this world just like everybody else is in this world. Let’s connect on that level, so that we can speak of the one who can make us to also be ‘not of it’.

Sin to Serve

When I was younger, I struggled greatly with pornography. It was, by far, the greatest battle I’ve ever fought in my life. When I finally got past this addiction (and I thank God for this), I found that I despised that particular sin more than any other. It had held me in bondage for so long and caused so much grief and pain, I just couldn’t stand it. And that feeling bled into people who were still trapped in it.

Here’s what I’m talking about: On my way home from work, I pass by a porn shop. Anytime I saw somebody going into the shop, I’d get mad at them. Didn’t they know how disgusting that place was? Didn’t they understand that they are hurting themselves as well as the girls being exploited? Why are they being so stupid?? Can’t they see how trapped they are?

But all this anger I felt at them was really anger I had felt toward myself. I had to learn to have compassion for those who are aren’t yet free from bonds which held me. To truly love the ‘sinner’ while hating the ‘sin’. Instead of passing the disappointment I felt in myself onto them, I had to learn to pass the hope that would eventually be fulfilled when I was free. To have the compassion upon them that God had on me. I completely deserved to be cut off forever from his Grace for what I did, but instead, he loved me when I least deserved it. This is what I had to learn to feel for those who were/are still in the midst of the quicksand I was pulled from.

See, I don’t believe getting delivered from a sin is enough. I believe God wants us to actually work to undo it’s effects in the world. To serve those who need a hand up.

I completed a race this past year call The Tough Mudder. Toward the end of this grueling 10 mile event was an obstacle called ‘Everest’ (link has some language, mute if you prefer). It was a quarter pipe, like you’d see at a skate park. We had to run up the increasingly vertical side of the pipe, grab onto the ledge, and pull ourselves up and over. The problem was that the preceding 9 miles of running up ski slopes, overcoming obstacles and being purposely kept wet in the freezing temperatures left most of us far too drained to beat this challenge. The surface of the quarter pipe was also pretty well slathered with slick mud.

So what happened is this: people built human chains for others to climb up and get on top of the ledge. Then, the people at the top of the ledge would lean over and help pull others up to the summit. At the point I went, I had to run and jump, barely grabbing onto the ledge that was 12 or so feet off the ground. At that point 2 or 3 guys grabbed my arms and helped haul me up. I probably would never have made it on my own. Once I was up, I turned around and helped the guy who came up behind me.

I think that’s how beating sin should work. If I had stood at the top of that obstacle and shook my head at how pathetic the people below were, I would have been the worst hypocrite on the planet. It also would have resulted in a ton of failure. Once you get up, give a hand to the others trying to get up.

I know God is the one who delivers us and frees us. But I also know that he made us to live in community and to help one another. If we don’t fulfill our roles, fewer people are going to make it over the challenge. And how horrible it is to be like me and instead of helping, standing at the top and angrily shaking my finger, discouraging anyone who would seek to ascend.

Jesus never sinned. But instead of loathing the wrong that people did, he had compassion on people. He alone had the right to look down on us, and he didn’t. He was the only person who could beat the obstacle of sin on his own. But instead of continuing to run off, leaving us to follow in his example, he stopped and reached over the ledge; ready to grab the muddy hand of anyone who would follow in his footsteps.

We must follow this example. We must accept his help to get over the challenges of sin we find in the path of our lives, then be ready to turn and offer a hand to others.

The Incomplete God

I believe in an incomplete God. I pray to an incomplete God, sing praises to an incomplete God and read the scriptures of an incomplete God. It’s not that God is incomplete, mind you. It’s that my understanding of God is incomplete. So I am left believing in a God who I only partially comprehend. I worship the tip of the iceberg, knowing that there is so much more which is beyond my perception.

I can’t tell you why one person dies of cancer while another recovers against all medical odds.

I can’t explain why one person wins the lottery while another struggles to feed their children.

I don’t know why some of my prayers yield amazing results while others seem to go unnoticed.

But the thing is, I’m a super analytical person.  I don’t like unsolved mysteries. I want a God that I can understand and explain. That way, everything makes sense. I don’t have to be confused or surprised in any situation.

So I fill in the blanks.

I take the God who in judgment destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the God who in mercy spared Nineveh and I draw connections to explain the differences.

I take the God who stuck Annanias and Sapphira dead and the God who forgave the adulterous woman and I color the spaces in between.

I take the God who killed almost everything on earth in the time of Noah and the God who came as a man and bore the guilt of the entire human race and I figure out a way to explain it simply and easily.

And I end up with something that isn’t God. Or rather, it’s a God created in my own image.

Because, despite vaguely understanding how feeble my mind is in comparison to the greatness of God’s existence, I prove over and over that I’d rather have a complete but false God than an incomplete/incomprehensible real God.

Only when things in my life occur which can’t be explained by my false God do I have to wake up to what I’ve done. And those are the times where I must do violence to the God I’ve created. Instead of having the ability to understand and explain what’s going on, I simply have to echo Ezekiel who, when asked something beyond his comprehension, answered “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

I have to face the fact that most of the time, I don’t know why God does whatGod does when God does it.

It’s when I start trying to improve God in my own eyes that I get myself into this trouble. When I try to make better sense of him in my own understanding.

So I do my best to worship the God who I can’t fully see or understand, leaving the blank spaces free from my own conjecture and speculation. The places where he has clothed himself with shadows, I cannot force him to be revealed.

He is, for me, the incomplete God who is greater than I could ever imagine.

The Sinful Invalid

In John chapter 5, we read the story of a man who had been an invalid for 38 years (v. 5). Jesus approaches this man and heals him. Amid the commotion, Jesus slips away into the crowd. Later, after the man has been accosted by religious people that are upset with the fact he is carrying his mat (at Jesus’ direction), it says that Jesus came back and found him again.

And this is what Jesus says to him: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (v. 14)

Whoa.

What?

I’m so curious here about what Jesus is referring to. Did the man become an invalid through sinful action? Or is Jesus indicating his sinfulness while he was apparently unable to do more than lay next to a pool, hoping to be healed?

I have no idea. There’s simply no way to know for sure.

But the fact that Jesus tells him to ‘stop sinning’ tends to indicate (at least to me) an active continuance as opposed to something that happened long in the past.

But without the physical ability to do much more than talk and lay around, it seems that any sin he was committing was internal.

Was the man full of bitter and anger over his condition?  Or perhaps lustful or greedy for what he could not have?

This hammered home to me a point I read in Psalms this week. In Psalm 24, David asks who is able to be in the Lord’s presence.  He then provides an answer to his own question in the next lines of the song:

“Only those whose hands and hearts are pure” (v. 4)

People who are pure, inside (heart) and ouside (hands). What we think/feel (heart) and what we do (hands).

We put a lot of emphasis on whether what we do is sinful. But honestly, I think our actions and words aren’t the issue. Those things come out of who we are.

We spend so much time trying to change our fruit, but we do it in silly ways. You can’t glue oranges on an apple tree and think that the tree has changed.

I think the work the Holy Spirit does within us is about planting new trees. God’s not after lip service. He’s not after us doing stuff to get points from him. He’s about us acting out of the resurrection life he is creating in us. Rather than attaching oranges to an apple tree, he’s taking the time to uproot the apple trees and plant orange trees in their place.

That process takes time. For the first few seasons, my orchard is still going to produce more apples than oranges. But as the work continues, as there are fewer apple trees and the orange trees mature, slowly but surely there will be evidence that this orchard creates oranges, rather than apples.

Just because the invalid may not have been able to act on his sinful nature doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. And Jesus was warning him, not as a threat, but in love. The man had just been given the ability to but action behind his desires. If his desires aren’t corrected, that only gives him the ability to head headlong into his own destruction.

What Jesus did seems dangerous to me. Why heal a guy that may end up being a real jerk?

Clearly, God’s respect for our free will is astounding. He gives chances that may be completely squandered. I make stupid, selfish, shortsighted choices all the time. I wish there was an easy way where I could turn off the part of me that wants to find spiritual shortcuts or loopholes. But instead, God insists that I should have the ability to frustrate or ignore or undo his work.

What an amazing God we serve. That he lets us co-author the story of our life to such a degree. A God that offers us new and abundant life, instead of mandating it.

Theology: Knowing God

I think that studying God, theology, the bible, etc, is like studying the moon.  If you buy the biggest telescope you can find and put it on maximum zoom, you’re going to learn a lot about the part of the moon you can see. You can also move the telescope around a see zoomed in pictures in different areas. But there’s two things to keep in mind:

1. You’re not going to be able to scan the entire surface of the moon with that telescope (or if you do, it’ll be so fast you won’t really see anything)

2. Even if you did see the entire surface of the moon that way, you’d still have a lot to learn about the moon.

See, if we just focus on one area, we’re going to miss a lot. At some point, you need to step away from the telescope and look at the whole sky. To see how beautiful the moon is, suspended in the black with stars around it. To see how the moon affects the tides here on Earth.

Don’t miss the beauty in the midst of the study.

I could focus my telescope on one particular crater and learn everything there is to know about that crater. Then, when people talk about the moon, I could talk for hours about that one crater. And people would be interested for about 5 minutes, then they would want me to shut up. There’s more to the moon than the one crater I know all about.

We can get so fixated on one point that we miss out on what’s really happening.

Alot of evangelical theology is based on the message that people who don’t believe in Jesus are going to hell, and they need to be saved. So we hand out tracts and talk through bullhorns and try to force people to come to church with us where we use an altar call to try and get them to say they believe.

I’m not saying that people aren’t going to hell. And I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s a minor deal.  But God is bigger and greater and grander than ‘the being who sends people to hell.’

God created this world, where we find joy and sorrow; heights and depths; pain and pleasure. More than that, he became one of us. The infinite, in one man. He who holds the galaxies in the palm of his hand, using feet to walk from one town to the next.

People who are so locked into their own theology that they think they are the only one who really ‘gets’ God scare me. A lot.  Because I have totally been like that in my life. And I was so blinded by my ‘right answers’ to let God be who he is. I turned the bible into a book of answers and doctrine instead of what it is: The story of a God and the flawed people he loves.

In Christianity, we say that we don’t have a religion, but rather a relationship. Then we put so much structure and so many requirements on that relationship that it becomes a religion.

I have a feeling that there is a great deal of truth in this world that we refuse to acknowledge because we didn’t think of it.

I believe that everyone is looking for God, whether they know it or not. And I believe that God has left signposts that point to him in the most unlikely places. Signposts that reveal truth about him. People who are paying attention will pick up on these truths, and believe in them.

Nature speaks of a great creator.

Intimacy speaks of a need to be completed by somebody or something.

Dreams point to the existence of something greater just below the surface.

Mercy and compassion reveal that there is something within us that works against the primal urges we’re told that we consist of.

Art reveals a need to see more than just what our eyes can perceive.

I once thought that God needed me. That he needed me to tell people about what he is really like because I had so much insight. He couldn’t sideline me, because I was too clever and smart.

Now, I realize that I’m about as useful as asking an ant to explain a supercomputer. A know-it-all is about the last thing God needs representing him.

I don’t understand God. I can’t explain why he does the things he does most of the time. If I zoom in, I can probably start to explain small parts of him better, but I’d rather step back and see the vastness, the grandeur, the beauty of who he is. And I’m content to be amazed and surprised by what I can’t contain.