So, I'm not who you expected...what now?

As I have blogged before, unmet expectations make for a rocky relationship.

I had a great discussion with a buddy at work a couple days ago. During the discussion I had another one of those moments when a light seems to go on somewhere near you and you spend days scrambling in the darkness to get near enough to it to illuminate some of the spiritual and emotional landscape that you are trying to navigate.

It seems that God, in his relationship with us, is inconsistent at least and undependable at worst. Now, please understand that this is from our, or at least my, viewpoint...not his! He doesn't always meet the expectations that I have set for him in my mind; products of my upbringing and my education in church and Christian schools. My friend shared that we have believed a lie about God and that is our undoing. What lie you ask? The original one, that we could be like God; that all of this is really about us...the one that our enemy is still playing over and over in our minds, that God is holding out on us. "Did God really say...insert slightly altered truth..."

Through all of this discussion and the processing that followed, Jesus has been asking me, "So, I'm not who you expected, huh? What are you going to do now; leave me?" Sounds familiar. John 6:67. The fact (for me) that God does not always meet our expectation; that he allows things to happen that are certainly not "good" by our definition; that he operates by "rules" in an existence that is beyond ours should not surprise us. C.S. Lewis, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, called it "deeper magic."

Treason, sin, demands the shedding of blood as payment for the offense. And so, since all have sinned, all must die. That is the magic around which the world operates. But, if one who is without sin offers his blood as a substitute for the traitor's, a deeper magic is put in play; one that goes beyond our comprehension and that supersedes the former. House rules no longer apply. The totally unlovable are somehow beloved.

So, how did I get into this in the first place? A random line of thinking, of course, led me hither. By law, Mary (the mother of Jesus) should have been put to death when it was discovered that she was with child without being married. She must have committed adultery. The lawful payment for adultery, God's law, was death. So, I guess God knew that his people, at that moment, would disobey his law and in doing so, keep Mary and Jesus alive. We believe, of course, that Mary did not commit adultery; that she was THE virgin prophesied so long ago who would carry Emmanuel. In all truth she did not deserve death.

A higher law....a deeper magic...an incomprehensible mystery. God didn't send his Son to us to convict and sentence us. No! That is normal magic. That was expected. God sent his Son to buy us back...and what a deal; the Worthy given as payment for the worthless.

Where would I go? You have the words of eternal life. John 6:68.

Unexpected God

Have you ever pondered that almost everything God has done, does and will do is unexpected? Now, I am not talking about how creation works, mostly dependable and predictable...well, except the weather (with the exception of places like Seattle where for at least nine months ofthe year you can expect some kind of rain at some time during the day - you're welcome, Seattle. I know you REALLY don't want all those Californians moving up to the NW!!).

But seriously, think about it in the context of Biblical history. People have tried to go about their daily lives from the beginning of time dealing with the expected. When God promised Abraham that he would have a child, do you think Abe realized it would be 25 years. Of course not. He was already 75. He had to have expected this miracle to happen, like, now! But a couple of 75/65 having a baby was not enough of a "God thing." No, it needed to be a couple of 100/90 to be unexpected enough.

Do you think the children of Israel expected 400 years of slavery when they were "saved" to Egypt by Joseph (though prophesied to Abraham in Genesis 15)? What were they thinking when God led them down a dead end canyon with Pharaoh right behind them and the sea in front of them? Even Moses, God's "friend," was confused. God knew how he was going to glorify himself. Dividing the sea, even if it was the Sea of Reeds, and drying it out enough for millions of people to pass through to the other side (not to mention finishing off what was left of Egypt's might by drowning their army) would qualify as unexected.

Fast forward past countless other examples over thousands of years to Jesus' birth. Even though it was prophesied, who really believed that Mary was telling the truth? Seriously? And consider her station; a nobody from nowhere. Couldn't God have chosen better than that? Even those who knew the prophesies and were looking for the Messiah didn't recognize Jesus as the one.

Jesus made a habit out of breaking out all over people's expectations for him. What was expected about a Rabbi who hung out with the rabble. Didn't he understand the rules about being "clean?"

What about us today? It seems that we are still surprised by God doing the unexpected...or probably more difficult...when God chooses NOT to do the expected. If you read this blog, you know that one of my favorite queries is, "What can you do with a God who won't behave?"

What if we could train ourselves to expect God to do the unexpected? What if we lived each difficult situation with an anticipation that God might, at any moment, break through and shock our socks off?

May it be true of me.

Getting what we deserve

“When it all comes down, it there’s anything good that happens in life it’s from Jesus” (from Hope Set High by Amy Grant).

I have been overwhelmed lately by how little we deserve, how much we get anyway and how we have convinced ourselves that, somehow, we deserve more.

It seems that the phrase, “Get what you deserve!” is a favorite in ads today, especially from law firms. I, for one, am so happy that we don’t get what we deserve. The fact is, if we were given what we deserve for who we are and what we have done (and do on a regular basis), it would be BAD and we would definitely NOT want it!!

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time” (from Secret of Life by James Taylor).

Since what we have is a gift and we have done nothing to deserve it, should we not simply be thankful and enjoy the passing of time, instead of always trying to make more out of it. Time, after all, is also a gift. Our lives are a breath that once taken is gone forever.

Life: A Passing Shadow

That fatal on the freeway
I was two cars behind it
Was almost part of it
Trying to stop
Before
Hitting the car in front of me

How fragile is existence
This instant, now, you are here
The next, you may be gone
Leaving a crowd
Wond'ring
Will my next heartbeat be the last?

Life is a breath
A mist
A passing thought
It cannot be captured
It can only be lived
In its moment
Live yours

Seize the Moment Yesterday cannot be changed Tomorrow cannot be written All we have is now, today To use, to do, to live in If this is true should we not give More care to how we spend it For time once used is time now gone We cannot apprehend it

 

To be, or not to be...strategic

I was corresponding with a young woman about how she might have impact on the Kingdom in a cross-cultural setting. Her degree was not along the “normal” paths followed by most missionary candidates. “If I had just been more strategic when I was picking a degree to pursue,” she lamented. I assured her that her training and education would have plenty of application in Kingdom work and would open doors for her that would never open for traditional missionary types.

Her lament has set me to thinking about the value of being strategic. The modern missionary movement (as opposed to the pre- and post-modern missionary movement) has certainly made being strategic a mantra for finishing the job, so much so that you can hardly go to a gathering of leaders where that term is not used again and again.

My concern is that God’s acts are anything but strategic from our human viewpoint. They always end up being the exact right act, of course, but most of the time we would not have picked that direction in our human evaluation. Let’s review just a couple…

God directed Israel to the absolute “worst” spot along the Red Sea with the Egyptians closing in…the end of a canyon with only water ahead of them. Samuel was pretty impressed with all of David’s brothers, but God chose the youngest and least experienced to be the king of Israel. God could have brought Jesus to the world as a king, but instead brought him as a baby, the child of nobody from nowhere. Jesus picked disciples who would not have been on anyone’s “who’s who” list…except maybe for Judas. And what about the paradoxes that Jesus threw out there. “The least will be the greatest.” The last will be first.” “To be great, you must be the servant of all.” “To live you must die.”

Being strategic affords us the opportunity to have greater impact. But I wonder just how great the impact would be if we allowed ourselves to do the non-strategic thing and give God the freedom to work? The spiritual reality is that God can and will use the least of these because then the glory can go only one place. Jesus told us we must become like children…but, wow, that is hard…no…impossible! We would never get anything done.

Exactly!!

Help us to humble ourselves and our ideas before you, God. Have mercy on us!

Are you a "Cat" or a "Dog?"

Last Sunday we sang How He Loves by John Mark McMillan. My favorite version is performed by David Crowder. You can experience that at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCunuL58odQ on YouTube. As I prepared for that Sunday my mind returned to ponderings about Dog and Cat theology.

Bob Sjogren wrote a book called Cat and Dog Theology in which the basic premise is that “cats” have an underlying belief that “you exist to serve me” while “dogs” believe that “I exist to serve you.” Cat lovers, please notice that I put “cats” in quotes because I don’t personally believe that all cats hold this philosophy (just most of them!).

Several years ago I heard Mr. Sjogren give a presentation of this concept. It was challenging and convicting. His warning was that the Church needs to guard against “cat theology;” the basic idea that it is all about us.  How He Loves could be considered a “cat theology” song in that the song focuses on God’s incomprehensible love for us. I am sure I have just polarized my reading audience…sorry. Mr. Sjogren used the song Above All, by Paul Baloche. Michael W. Smith really brought that song to popularity and it is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNv4xVVVHd8 on YouTube.

Here is the dilemma, and it is a common one for my feeble mind. Scripture clearly supports both “cats” and “dogs” in their thinking about their relationship with God. “Cats” hold tightly onto the John 3 discourse as well as 1 John and many other passages of scripture clearly proclaiming that God’s love for us is so deep that it brought about the greatest of sacrifices to redeem us to himself. “Dogs” would respond with the comment that God did all of that to bring glory to himself, also supported by pages and pages of Scripture. Obviously this could be fleshed out much more deeply, but you get the idea.

One person explained these types of challenges in our faith to me as a mountain where the slopes of either side are clearly visible but the peak, where both sides come together, is obscured by clouds. Brian McLaren, in A New Kind of Christian, explains that most of us think and take our stand somewhere along a continuum from one extreme to the other. God’s truth, however, lies somewhere above our human continuum, on a different plane altogether. You could say that all things like this, where contradictory concepts are both supported in Scripture, find their intersection somewhere in our infinite God.

Someday we may know how all those things come together; but my personal belief is that, when that time comes, stuff like this will have lost its interest for us being overwhelmed by the glory of our God and Savior. So, for now, let’s have fun dissecting these issues but focus on loving each other anyway…whether “cats” or “dogs!”