The God Who is not Superman

It's that moment when you're falling....the bottom's dropped out and your fingers try to grab onto anything close, but every ledge, every fire escape, rushes by too fast. The street below gets bigger and bigger. Any minute, you're going to hit bottom.

And then it happens....

You feel strong hands under your shoulders and behind your knees, the ground stops rushing up and you're swept instead into midair...safe at last.

Who else could it be? Superman.

Oh, I do like that moment....the feeling of rescue. The fear as it drains away and you wrap grateful arms around his neck. 

What is is about that guy, anyway? I'm pretty sure it's not the cape. It's not the muscles or that cute curl in the middle of his forehead. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know why the Man of Steel appeals so much, at least to me.


It's that in giving in to Superman, I'm admitting a secret vulnerability.
I mean really.
When was the last time any of us had to be rescued from anything? 
In general, we are capable, intelligent, and self-sufficient.  I don't fall off buildings. Bad guys don't chase me. No one needs to rescue me. Not really.

And a good thing too. Because Superman isn't real. I know that. *shrug*

But here's the rub. 
Sometimes I still feel like I need rescue. 

Everybody seems to be calling my name at once. The washer breaks on the same day as it snows 15 inches. Three of our children all get the flu at the same time and we don't have insurance. Somebody hits the only car we own. Somebody we love betrays. Somebody we love dies. 

I'm not falling off a bridge, but it sure feels like it. Superman may be fiction, but my feelings are real. I'm hanging alone at the end of my rope. I've done everything I know to do and I'm still going down for the third time. No man, super or not, is coming to help.
There's only one thing to do--and I cry out:

Rescue me, Oh Lord, 
Make haste to help me...
Free me from the snare they have set for me... 
Come quickly and answer me. 
Do not turn away from me or I will die...
Psalm 40, 31,143

And He does. God rescues.
Not like Superman. Not with cape and tights. But like God. 
The God Who is not Superman. 

And there's a big difference.

This is what God's rescue looks like:
When I prove my holiness among you, I will gather you from all foreign lands; and I will pour clean water upon you and cleanse you from your impurities, and I will give you a new spirit, says the Lord. --Ezekiel 36:23-26

He just doesn't fold us into His arms, carry us to safety, and then fly off to the next crisis.
God completes the job. He makes us holy.
He doesn't pat us on the head and let us straighten our skirt and go our way. He cleans us from the inside out.
He doesn't give us a pert little salute. He gives us a new spirit.

He has to and, better yet, He wants to.
Like Moses who had to take off his shoes before he could approach God in the burning bush, like the Israelites who had to believe God before they could enter the promised land, we have to be prepared. God's rescue isn't a one-step process.
He wants to reclaim all of us, inside and out, and that takes time.

That's real rescue. 
God plucks us out of danger by showing us our sin and guiding us to the firm ground of repentence.
God takes us to high ground by gifting us with faith and hope.
God puts out his hand, helping us stand every day in growing the fruit of His Spirit--kindness, meekness, self-control, and all the rest.

And, when He is done, He brings and keeps us near, made new in confidence in Him, leaning on His shoulder, depending on the only sure rescue there ever was and ever will be.
And there it is, the fear draining away as you wrap grateful arms around His neck...
Do not be afraid. I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine.--Isaiah 43:1

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'Believe' is a Verb

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It all sounds so simple.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved...--Acts 16:31
All I have to do is to believe, to have faith in Christ and His saving work on the cross. I have to do nothing, bring nothing of myself to the party. I'm in.

Oh, but then, there's this:
Faith without works is dead.--James 2:26
Did I misunderstand? Maybe not.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.--Philippians 2:12
No, I didn't misunderstand. I need faith. I need to believe, and I need to do something about it. I need to work my faith out.

Is there anything else? Well, it turns out there is.
...this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God--1 Peter 3:21
and this--
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved...--Mark 16:16

OK.
So, I am to believe, and work, and be baptized.
Anything else?
Yes.

I need to endure.
He who endures to the end will be saved.--Matthew 24:13
Whoever endures to the end will be saved--Matthew 10:22

Believe. Work. Be Baptized. Endure.
Well, which one is it?

Why does it have to be just one?
Why is the instruction to be baptized more important that the others? Or the requirement to believe? Can't they all go together? Don't they have to? And more importantly, why do we beat each other up about this? Is it really that important for us to be right so that we can make everyone else wrong?

You see, I think that the  Bible is very deep. It's full of rich meaning and we could spend a lifetime unpeeling its layers of revelation, but it's also very simple. God never stutters. The simple answer is not to figure out which of these requirements for salvation apply, but to take them at face value, all of them, the plain way that God says them.

'Believe' is a verb, not just a mental exercise. Believing is not diminished by doing something about our belief.

Imagine a tightrope walker about to cross Niagra Falls. He asks the crowd, "Do you believe I can make it?" "We believe!" they answer and so he sets out. An hour later, he reaches the other side. Then he asks them, "Do you believe I can cross blindfolded?" "We believe!" they answer again. And again, he crosses successfully. The third time he asks the crowd, "Do you believe I can cross with a man on my back?" Again they answer, "We believe!" That's when he asks for a volunteer. The one not willing to go, of course, is the one who does not believe.
Belief and action go together. One is not better than the other. They all exist together. They have to. 

Grammar. Semantics. We spend way too much time, as Christians, differentiating between ourselves, pointing fingers, so sure that we are right and the folks across the street are wrong. Christ died for us all. The least we can do is to show Him that we were worth it.

Belief lives not only in our brain or our emotions. It has arms and legs. It moves and testifies. It not only changes us. It helps change the world.

God Never Says "Oops"

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Whenever something bad happens to me, my first reaction is to think that I don't belong in my situation. Surely, there's been some kind of mistake.
My son shouldn't be sick. I shouldn't have constant conflict with my boss. I'm not supposed to have broken my mother's prized china. My husband wasn't supposed to be downsized out of a job. Our car shouldn't have broken down. I wasn't supposed to lose my wallet. I wasn't intended to burn the turkey.
Wrong.
Wherever I am, I belong there.

No, no, you might say. The bad things that happen are the result of evil in the world. God doesn't want bad things to happen to you. He loves you. He wants you to be happy.

Hmm.
Is God really God, then?
Is He all powerful, all knowing? Does anything take Him by surprise? Is He unable to stop evil?
Um. I don't think so.

Regardless of what I want to believe about my situation, I am in it for one of only two reasons:
Either God has willed it, or He has allowed it.
Period.
If I do not admit this, then God becomes subservient to my will, to the devil, to chance, or to something else. And He can't. If He does, He is not God.
Whatever I or someone else has done to cause my present circumstances, God did not stop them. They happened. They may not look good, but my loving, perfect God has permitted them.
And this is where I get stuck.
Either God is perfect or He's not.
Either He can do anything, or He can't.

God is not selectively perfect. He is not selectively knowing. He is not selectively loving.
God is these things all the time.
He does not make me do stuff, but He does work all things together for good. He can turn my bad decisions, eventually, into good. He can turn evil inside out. He does it all the time.
He can do this because He does not live in moments of time. We do.
I see only this moment--this nasty tangle, this unfair circumstance.
God, however, sees the end of all things. He knows how a given set of circumstances works out not only for me, but for everybody everywhere. He has a plan and I can't, no matter how I mess stuff up, change it.

In fact, I am part of it:
From one man He made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him, and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, for He is not far from each one of us.--Acts 17:26-27

That's His plan.
For us to seek Him and find Him.
And, if I have to lose my wallet in the meantime, it's not God saying "Oops", it's Him working His plan.
I can live with that.

Not Giving Up for Lent

 

pic: kingdomvoicesmag.com

The temple in Jerusalem.
Have you ever imagined it?
The gold, the tapestries and furs. Candlelight diffused into partial darkness, a table spread every day with new bread, and all the time the haunting knowledge that, just in the next room, GOD IS.

God.
Right there.
The Presence between the cherubim.

Now, switch gears for a minute and think of yourself.
Your very own body.
God's new temple.

Now, stop it.
Stop shuffling and bowing your head and saying, "Aw, shucks. I'm not so much..."
You are. God said so.

On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in Me and I am in you.--John 14:20
Those who obey His commands live in Him and He in them.--1John 3:24

 You are the new temple. Me, too.
As beautiful as the old one--silver, gold, and fine linen.

But the old temple didn't last. Enemies of God destroyed it.
Defiled, the sanctuary stripped, the precious metals stolen, the decorations destroyed.
Well, destruction comes to our temple, too. It, too, is stripped and desecrated.
And we all know what does it. We all know what causes our own ruin.
We do. Me. Us. Our sin. Mine and yours.
When we sin, our temple looks just as miserable as the Hebrews'.
And today, on Ash Wednesday, I remind myself that I am dust as a result.
Dust. Just like the destroyed temple.

But the Jewish temple didn't stay that way and I don't have to, either.
In 167 BC, Judas Maccabeus amassed an army determined to take back the temple and, after seven years of battle, they did it.
But, here's the point:  He didn't do it by giving anything up or sitting idly by, waiting for the Lord to do something.
He took back his temple by fighting for it.
He didn't only deny himself stuff or fast for it or just pray for it. He picked up his sword and fought for what belonged to both God and His people.

That is what Lent is for.
Lent is our time to take back our temple.
And just giving up stuff will not help. Denying myself Oreos or NCIS will not do it unless it was cookies or television that defiled me in the first place. Eating fish will not help unless prime rib was the agent of sin. We will have to fight for the restoration of our temple, just like the Maccabees did. We will have to use offensive weapons, not defensive ones.
We have to use Lent to kick out the invaders in our own bodies that have caused us to sin.

Let us restore the decayed state of our people and let us fight for our people and the sanctuary.--1Maccabees 3:43

Lent is when we retake our own sanctuary and restore it to its Owner.
Lent is when we restore ourselves for God.

God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.--Colossians 1:27

Stuck Between Awful and Awesome

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I didn't know this would be the hard part.

It looked so straightforward at first.
I was a sinner. That was plain. The list of my ungodly behaviors was long and shameful. But God is good. He showed my sins to me one by one, as gently as was possible, and guided me out of the dark place where I lived with them. And I learned to leave them behind, step by painful step, and the horizon cleared. I learned how to live in God's light, for the most part within His commands. I changed. A lot.

And God said it was good.

So, here I am. A new person. Walking in a new light, a new life. I look around and relax into it, nodding my head in agreement with what God has done in me, saying "Yeah. Thanks, God. I'm liking this."
I go to church every week.
I'm kind to children and animals and even cranky neighbors.
I mind, for the most part, my words and thoughts.
I help the people God brings into my world.
I concentrate hard on being a good wife and mother.
I try to work to God's glory.
I've found a rhythm to this life. It's become familiar. What I used to be and do is slowing fading into a shadowy past and this version of me has become my new, redeemed normal. 

And that's the problem. It's normal.
My new life is normal and God isn't. God is awesome. He's thrilling, exciting, beyond imagination surprising.
But if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be stuck here. Rescued from the awful, but not reaching the awesome.

This is what nobody told me when I started on this way--
God doesn't want us to look like redeemed humans.
He wants us to look like Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory--2 Corinthians 3:18

Darn. That's hard.
Harder than following commandments. Harder than changing behaviors. Harder than stopping habits and thought patterns.
God doesn't just want me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Him.
And, just for the record, I am not at all like God.

And yet.....and yet. I've nowhere else to go. It's either go back to the old me--no longer a viable alternative at this point--or it's more of the same--which is bogging me down--or it's this next thing, this glory, this transformation into something that's not only not me--it's not even human.

Not even human. That's the reason it sounds and feels so strange. God wants me to become more than I've ever seen in me or anyone else. I can never be God. I can never share all of his power or might or perfection, but He does want me to become god-like. He wants me to share His glory.

He created me to be like Him.
And God made man in his own image--Genesis 1:27
He says I can be holy.
Be ye holy as I am holy--Leviticus 19:2
He says that, as His beloved child, I am one with Him.
You are gods--you are all sons of the Most High--Psalm 82:6
He says he can make me perfect.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father.--Matthew 5:48, Nehemiah 2:48

If I am ever to get unstuck, this is where I have to go.
Up. More.
He must become greater, I must become less.--John 3:30
I have to aim for what looks impossible.
I have to go to a place I can never, never reach on my own. 
And maybe that's the point.
The further I go, the more I need His help. Until, finally, we get so close that we are never apart. So close as to be almost indistinguishable.
Yes. I would like that.

Not Drowning in the Meaningless

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Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!--Ecclesiastes 1:1

Poor Solomon.
I always felt kind of sorry for him, but not so much anymore.
Actually, I've come to understand that he was right, but not in a bad way.
Everything IS meaningless, and that knowledge drives us to find a reason for living. This is a good thing. Understanding that most of what we do and accomplish doesn't last drives us to search for meaning, for a reason to take the next breath.
And that's where Solomon got into trouble.

His dad, David, also thought life was meaningless. He did.
David, like Solomon, knew he was a sinner. He was drowning in his sins, in fact. Like Solomon, he knew that after he'd messed up big time, his good intentions had failed. He'd done very little right. He'd tried, but was not a worthy king, a good friend, or a successful husband and father. Like Solomon, he'd messed it all up.
But unlike Solomon, he didn't sink into melancholy over it.
Unlike Solomon, he didn't lose his reason for living.

Why? In spite of all the wrong turns, God was not enough for Solomon.
But God was more than enough for David.

How can we tell? Look at the symptoms.
Frustration = lost reason
Fear = lost reason
Depression = lost reason
Loneliness = lost reason

Solomon had them all. David did not.
David had repentance and after repentance, David had God.
I must find God, too, if I am to find the source of a balance mind and heart and the source of all health. I must always know the only solid reason for my life. 

I will never leave you nor forsake you.--Deuteronomy 31:8

God will take me beyond this life into eternity. He endures.
It's OK if everything is meaningless. I have God.

Believing It Will Rain

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Noah. Almost everybody knows his story.
God told him to build a boat and, in it, put all the animals two by two because He planned to flood the earth. And Noah did.
It wasn't an easy job, though. The boat had to be one and a half football fields long. It took Noah 100 years to finish the job. His neighbors made fun of him, of course, but he remained faithful to the task.
I always thought Noah was an example of perseverance, but I was wrong.
Noah is an example of faith.

By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.--Hebrews 11:7

Remember, faith is believing in what we have never seen. So what was Noah's leap of faith?
He had never seen rain.
In his experience, water had never fallen from the sky.
Now, that gives the whole boat building thing a new twist. How could he explain to anyone--his wife, his kids, everyone he knew--what he was doing? There was no way. It would make more practical sense for me to build a rocket ship in my backyard. At least I'd be able to point to the sky and the stars and say, "See? I'm going there!"  Not Noah.

So that begs the question, if Noah is an example of faith, what is my ark? Where is my promise of rain?
That is easier.
A God I can't see. A heaven I can't touch. An inner knowledge I can't explain.
My ark. My rain. My faith.

Why Do They Get all the Good Miracles?

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A pastor in Libya is rescued from a firing squad.
A child in Zambia is healed overnight from tuberculosis.
Christ appears to a man in an Egyptian jail who comes to believe.
BUT
Here, my sweet, believing friend dies from cancer.
Here, my father dies before acknowledging the truth of the gospel.

WHY?
Why do they get the miracles and we don't?

Hm... maybe because we don't need them in the same way.

After all, God gave us, here in the U.S., different stuff.
We have relative safety.
We have abundant wealth.
We have good health care.

The people in Libya and Zambia and Egypt don't. They have active war, and famine, and poverty, and rampant disease. I don't know why, but it's true.
So when they look for God, where do they find Him? In the places they need Him most.
And He shows up there.

And how about us? Where do we need God most?
It's not in the same places.
My friend who died got excellent medical care because God made that possible. And she didn't die in a fly-blown grass hut, alone and in excruciating pain. She died in a nursing home surrounded by caring nurses and loving family.
My father did not grow up in a Muslim nation that executed Christians, but in a place where the truth of Christ poured out all around him from nearly every member of his family, and by which he was consequently well-loved his whole adult life.
My friend and my father did not need the same kind of miracles.
And they didn't get them.

So where do our miracles come? 
Where do we most need God to intervene?

Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, or be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.--Luke 12: 27, 29, 32

God gives us what we do not already have because there we will be most likely to see Him and His kingdom.
Only when we come to the end of our own resources will God make a miracle.
He has already given us gifts and expects us to use them.

Looking for a miracle?
Look to that place where gifts end, where strength fails.
Look to that place where only hope remains.
There is the stage set for a miracle.

Put the Book Down, Will You?

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So--we're watching "The Mummy", you know, the first one. The movie's about 2/3 over--Evie is defending herself against the just-revived, dessicated Anck-Su-Namun, Rick O'Connell is whacking away at dusty but determined Egyptian priests, and then there's Jonathan. Oh yes, Evie's aimless brother. He's on the periphery of the action with the all-important Book of the Dead, the book that holds the key to destroying the scary and dangerous Imotep. And Jonathan is, well, irritating.

There he is, book in hand, essentially out of danger, and his only job is to READ SOMETHING. I mean, how hard can it be? And he's COMPLAINING about it. And while he's doing it, and slowly, mind you, Rick and Evie are subduing real bad guys--dismembering them and scattering them to the winds. And what are they doing at the same time? HELPING JONATHAN.

That's right. Here they are, swords flying, giving the guy who risks nothing hints and help, all while keeping flesh-hungry mummies at bay. And while they do it, they are patient, articulate, and brave. Duh. What's wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing as it turns out. This, ladies and gents, is the way of our world. We are Jonathan. Yes, we are. I mean, really....when was the last time you ever had to really defend anything or anyone? When have you been in any real danger?

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.--Hebrews 12:4

No we haven't. And we're still complaining.
It's too hard, Lord.
Why me, Lord?
Give me, Lord!
Help....Help....Help....

And there's our God, sword in hand, defending us, or hands stretched out on the cross, dying for us.
We ought to have only one thing on our lips.
Humble thanksgiving.
Really.

We don't necessarily have to put down our own work, but maybe we ought to recognize what's really going on outside our little world, don't you think?