A Risky Business

 

My life seems to be a constant growth cycle. 

 

I go from an initial place of trusting in God, to an insurmountable problem, to worry and anxiety, to remembering His faithfulness in the past, to choosing to believe once again, to one small encouraging sign of His love—a sign that grows the faith even before I see the answer, to praise for Who He is and what He is going to do, and then, finally, to the miracle. Then we begin again, with a slightly more insurmountable problem.

 

This faith walk is like following stepping stones across a raging river. I step out, jump onto the next three stones that are nearby, then look around for another foothold. I see none at first, then one that is close but requires a bit of a stretch, then another that is no bigger than the size of my foot. This one seems too far to hazard a leap but there is no other option. I cannot go back. So I leap, and then keep on going as far as I can, taking chances, and all the time wondering if I will run out of rocks in the middle of the torrent. 

 

I go one step at a time, trusting, because I have to. No one is going to helicopter me out of the middle of this process, even though it’s a risk each time I lift my foot that I am going to slip and fall. Or else end up stranded halfway there with no way out.

 

But it’s a risk that excites me. It challenges me to keep trying. Because by now the journey is actually a risk-free adventure. My faith experience over the past 70 years has taught me that when I reach a place of desperation, at the end of my own strength and wisdom, I can turn to the One Who created the universe. This same One has held my hand all along the journey so far. I can turn to Him for wisdom and strength and courage and know He will provide all I need to get to the other side.

 

Knowing that He is there and that He is trustworthy has turned my life journey from an anxiety-ridden existence into an exciting adventure.

 

 

 

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.   

 

Proverbs 3:5-6

 

 

 

Holiness Lost

 

The Bible tells stories about people who “experience” the actual presence of God, and in all cases, they fall down. They can’t help it. It’s not that God knocks them down. He doesn’t do that to innocent people. They fall down because He is holy.

 

The Bible says that one day everyone who has ever lived will fall down before Jesus Christ. For some, it will come as a real shock. As Dallas Willard puts it, “Reality is what hits you when you’re wrong.” None of us is completely right in our view of God, and we are perhaps most wrong in our mis-understanding of his holiness.

 

We human beings lost our view of what holiness is in the beginning when our first parents decided to turn away from Him and take His place of authority in their lives. And we, as their individual offspring, have affirmed their decision, making ourselves our own gods, bowing to our own self-interest in place of the One who deserves worship—the one Who is the source of life.

In a comment on an internet site in Quora, under a discussion of freedom and death, one person says: 

 

I believe that death holds more freedom than life. We live in a world where we have no choice but to participate in activities that benefit others more than it does ourselves. The idea of not knowing implies endless possibilities. 

 

I assume this writer feels that at least one of the “endless possibilities” that agnosticism affords us is the freedom to live only to benefit ourselves—to reign over our own lives. That, to some, might seem to be the essence of happiness. But all of our human experience shows the opposite is actually true.

 

We all bend toward the desire to do life our own way, rather than the way the Creator designed us. But the Bible says living our lives without reference to God leads to death, not freedom. We destroy ourselves physically, psychologically, and spiritually when we turn our backs on Him. We cut ourselves off from the source of life and we are lost.

 

This state-of-affairs is illustrated in contemporary art. Our lostness is reflected in images that include all the symbols of death and darkness. We wear those symbols on our clothing; we ink them on our bodies; we express them in our song lyrics. And in an unholy world we earn Grammy awards for them.

 

But we are self-destructing. Anyone with eyes can see it. We live in a “fuck you” world. It’s an agony that we, as a culture, have turned our backs on God and so lost any real sense of what holiness is like. It’s a huge loss.

Holiness and the F-Word

 

This morning I’ve been thinking about the word ‘holy’ for some reason. I started this train of thought by remembering a conversation I had with some girls at school yesterday.

 

I overheard one of them use the word ‘fucking’ and, since we were just standing around waiting for another P.E. class we were joining to get organized, I decided to give a mini-lesson on how and why that word—the F-word—sounds so offensive to people. 

 

Today, as I think about it, I am realizing that the word can only be offensive if there is really a God. Atheists and agnostics also often find the word offensive, but if they were asked why, I think they might have a hard time coming up with an explanation. 

 

The F-word is the epitome of whatever is the opposite of the word ‘holy,’ and the word ‘holy’ only has meaning in the context of God. Not just god as an impersonal force either. Holy defines a personal God—a God who can be wronged, defied, treated with disdain and therefore offended and abused in the most horrible way--horrible because of Who He is.

 

What does this have to do with the word ‘fuck?’

 

When I googled 'fuck' to find out what it means, I found it described as a . . .sassy, controversial, comforting, profane and sacred four-letter word covering a wide range of states including pain, anger, happiness, boredom, elation, panic, disgust, and excitement.

 

So it seems that, though the word has been associated with the sex act, it has become many other things as well. It’s become a reflection of the confusion of our age: profane and sacred and everything else we want to make it.

 

Since it has become all those things—in a sense all things to all people—I am going to take the liberty of giving it another definition myself. I will say that ‘fuck’ is a term of rebellion against all goodness with a capital “G.” In reference to the sex act, the word is a deliberate desecration of an act of holiness—the act which a Holy God designed as a process for creating holy human beings—human beings in His image.

 

And so the word, to me, expresses desecration in general, and a defiance of all that is good—all that is holy.

 

Even if we don’t know why, we human beings seem to have an ingrained sense of awe—some sense of right and wrong—about these words.  Both of them: ‘holy’ and ‘fuck’. I believe that’s because we have an innate sense, however vaguely the concept is understood, that there is a God and that He is good. 

 

We have an innate sense, as well, that He is more than an impersonal force, however inadequately we understand that concept. We sense that God is personal, and is, Himself, the epitome of holiness. Or, I guess it’s holiness that is the epitome of God?

 

What if that’s true? What if holiness is the central, defining characteristic of God? What if every other characteristic of Him wraps around this central reality?  What if His goodness, his wisdom, his merciful compassion, even his omnipotence, surround His central core—His holiness? What if Holiness defines Him?

 

This is the characteristic, or personality trait of God, that brings me most often to my knees. When I mediate on Him—when my mind and heart turn in His direction—I collapse in awe and worship because of His holiness.  I can’t help it. Even though I can’t describe ‘holy’ adequately, any more than I can adequately describe Him, yet holiness floods my spirit when I think of Him.

 

I believe that experiencing holiness is experiencing God. For real.

 

And that’s why the F-word always makes me cringe.