salt-shaker.blog

So who is my God? Really. Sometimes it is difficult to reconcile seemingly contrary ideas about the God of the Bible. Is He fair or is He merciful? A God of wrath or of love? Is He sovereign or do we have free will? Dallas Willard says that our perception of God is the most defining issue of our lives. The most defining issue! What if I am missing the real Him despite (or perhaps because of) all the sermons, devotions, prayer, and meetings? Is He tangibly present or a confusing concept?

We have a glaring warning in Luke 7:30 where Scripture records that “the Pharisees and the experts in religious law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.” The Phillips says that “they frustrated God’s plans for them”. They assumed they knew God because they knew so much about His laws, but when He showed up, they clung to their head knowledge instead of listening to their hearts. Are we so different? Listen to this expanded expanded version: “The common people and tax collectors heard God’s own wisdom in Jesus’ assessment of John because they had been ritually cleansed through baptism by John. But the Pharisees and religious scholars hardened their hearts and turned their backs on God’s purposes for them because they had refused John’s baptism.“  (Voice) Apparently he didn’t do it ‘right’. Notice – they refused repentance! That’s when we miss Him – when we rely on our own cherished ideas of who He should be and hang back from His invitation to an intimacy that begins with obedience.

John called for repentance, a reset of attitude, a turning away from casual religion to a radical humility of ‘otherness’. Jesus, on the other hand, calls for unqualified surrender. Theology buffers us from interacting with this real, unpredictable, uncontrollable God Who so often confounds our morality and confuses our perceptions. Knowledge helps us safely predict cause and effect interaction instead of uncertainty and awkwardness. Our faith indeed rests on His character, but sometimes that is obscured by circumstance, unmet expectation, and unfulfilled promise.

If we go at God with our head we can perhaps theologize or rationalize some of the confusion. But our hearts must be engaged to avoid fatal error. Consider that Abraham trusted the God Who seemed to withhold the very gift promised. BUT THEN God gives Abraham a son miraculously. Joseph’s dream was crushed repeatedly and he suffered injustice, BUT THEN he became the second most powerful man in the world. (Hmm, remind us of someone else?) David, the man after God’s own heart (a whole sermon right there when you look at his profound failures) spent years fleeing for his life although he was already the anointed king. Saul didn’t exactly embrace that idea. BUT THEN God put him on the throne. He probably had a few moments when he wondered about His God . Read the Psalms and you’ll see a real person wrestling with frustration and confusion just like we do. The Bible is full of examples where logic was overthrown by the reality of a sovereign God Who worked all things together for good in the long run despite short term turmoil.

Our problem is that so often it doesn’t look like we think it should, like we were told it should, or like our doctrine dictates it should. What then? God becomes a concept, a dogma, a theological construct. We box Him in, pray Him up, and expect Him to perform like the wind up toy we have made Him to be. What happens when He does not conform to our expectations – yes, even our scriptural ones? Ask Job’s friends about that. Or Jesus’ friends. Or your own. God is wild and will not be confined by the narrow dictates of His dust creatures. He has bigger plans. And better.

If we allow Him to be Who He is, however, we will see amazing things. Things that take the humility of faith to experience. The kind that sits with questions. The kind that wrestles in prayer. The kind that perseveres when it feels betrayed. The kind that is convinced of His character despite the circumstances. The kind that discovers what it is to have a “personal relationship” – chatting, arguing, yielding, cooperating – with the God of the universe. The kind that draws near to Him and expects Him to reciprocate.

Determine to go to God and not to your head. Decide to trust and obey. The theology of Job’s friends missed it while a confused Job declared ‘though He slay me yet will I trust Him” and was vindicated. He took His questions to God. Let’s follow that example. Figure it out in prayer. Voice your concerns but end with awe. Let God be God in the midst of your pain, and wait patiently for your BUT THEN.

Shalom