A bit of a rambling post, but here goes:
A friend and I had a discussion recently, about what God does in our lives. My friend talked about how people he knew had waited and waited for God to show up, and in that passivity and inactivity, had lost some stuff. You know how Christians are... We wait on God, that's what we do. It's a very holy endeavour, one has to say; it shows how much we trust God.
The flip side of that is what the Israelites did. They got tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, and made a golden calf to worship. Or what Saul, did: he got tired of waiting for Samuel, and made his own sacrifice to God. Or what many of the rest of us do: we get tired of waiting (or don't believe at all that God will come), and just do our own thing. We save ourselves.
I listened to a sermon last week about the tension between the now, and the not-yet. The Kingdom that's come, and the Kingdom yet to come. We live in the in between, and that's a very difficult place to be. Things are changing, but we're not there yet.
An illustration of that could be the period when a child is in the womb. When my sister first fell pregnant, no one believed it. Not me, not the rest of my family; not even her. We had all waited ten years for that to happen, and to be honest we had all kind of stopped waiting. So when that first home test came out positive, we all thought it was some fluke. We still thought it was a fluke when multiple ones were positive after that.
Long story short, 16 weeks into her pregnancy, we stood in the ultrasound room at my friend's clinic, watching Samuel stretch and move on a computer screen. (This may be his auntie's active imagination). And even then it seemed completely unreal. It was still hard to believe as I watched my sister's belly grow, over the months. It really only became a proper thing when we held Sam in our arms, in March of this year.
That's pretty much what waiting on God is like, for me. Of course there's no confirmation that will make it real for me that God is at work in the background. Not even a growing belly. I will be fearful. I will be wracked with doubt. There is tension, because even though I know (I have faith that) God will save me, He hasn't saved me yet. What if He doesn't? And maybe I'm not doing enough?
So, it's pretty much about choices at that point. Do I wait? Do I trust that He will come through? What does that trust look like? Especially in a secular world, that no longer cares? What does trusting God even mean, and how does that fit into my life? Am I only trusting that I'll get into heaven (or that I won't go to hell) because I'm a Christian, or do I believe that God still actively intervenes in the affairs of men- in my affairs? Do I wait passively, expecting that God will descend from heaven on a cloud, with cherubs strumming harps and maybe a few electric guitars? Do I wait actively, doing what I can, and knowing that there's a point where I end, and the rest only God can do? And then, when God doesn't show up at the time that I set on the timetable that I emailed him yesterday, do I save myself?
With Sam, it was pretty clear that 9 months after conception, a child would be entering the world. What about more nebulous things- like waiting for God to heal? Or concrete things, like waiting for things to change in Zimbabwe? What about the day-to-day, like when I'm unemployed? I think that tension thing comes into play again. I need to do what I can do, and let God do what only He can. I need to keep hoping He will come through, but keep working, doing my best. I need to guard against passivity: lying on the ground in the field, waiting for God to plough the land, drop seed from heaven, cover it, tend it until it sprouts, water it, and then finally tell me when it's time for harvest. But I also need to know that as much as I can do those things myself, I don't know how the seed actually comes up, and I am not in complete control of the harvest. Planting is my work; the harvest is God's. That's tension.
I spoke a little in my last post about the vows one makes when disappointment sets in... Like when God doesn't show up on time. Saving myself is what I do when I'm doing God's work. Making vows to guard against future pain. Setting up counterfeit gods, that actually boil down to me playing God in my own life. (Since idols don't answer, what I am really doing is making God on my own terms- an idol being what I want God to be for me). Trusting in my own power to make my life work. Telling myself that when I do X, then everything will finally be ok. When I become smart enough to get that job, or beautiful enough, or rich enough, or whatever. So, vowing that I will save myself is setting myself up as an idol: I will be God to me. I will have enough power, strength and wisdom to do it all on my own. I will no longer wait for that other god, that nebulous, capricious one who never shows up when you call Him. I won't bow my knee to Him anymore, because He doesn't help me.
I have to search my heart a lot on this, because some of the vows I made, I made as a child. I decided that God must not care, because of what was happening around me, and to me; and so I must save myself, because God wasn't coming. And even though I have been a Christian most of my life, this idea has informed my worldview. I am a pretty logical person, so that small god- logic- is always lurking, justifying my decisions not to wait for God to show up. I respond to the tension between the now, and not-yet by looking at my circumstances, and shrinking my dreams, and cutting away everything that God could do, leaving only what I can do. Impoverished dreaming. Using the farming analogy, I consume my life in buying farmer's journals, and the best fertiliser, attending farming conferences, irrigating the field to death, pouring myself wholly and completely into ensuring I get the best harvest using the very best and latest scientific methods- as if I have control over everything that could come up from the ground. My tendency is not passivity, but the opposite. No longer believing God will come, I am the one who makes a golden calf: me, my own strength, my logic, my wisdom.
Here's what I should really do:
2Co 10:5 Putting an end to reasonings, and every high thing which is lifted up against the knowledge of God, and causing every thought to come under the authority of Christ; (BBE)
Because in the end, my knowledge is limited. (It's funny to think about, but I really think I know it all).
Hubris is a terrible thing- and I'm always standing at the edge of it.
A friend and I had a discussion recently, about what God does in our lives. My friend talked about how people he knew had waited and waited for God to show up, and in that passivity and inactivity, had lost some stuff. You know how Christians are... We wait on God, that's what we do. It's a very holy endeavour, one has to say; it shows how much we trust God.
The flip side of that is what the Israelites did. They got tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, and made a golden calf to worship. Or what Saul, did: he got tired of waiting for Samuel, and made his own sacrifice to God. Or what many of the rest of us do: we get tired of waiting (or don't believe at all that God will come), and just do our own thing. We save ourselves.
I listened to a sermon last week about the tension between the now, and the not-yet. The Kingdom that's come, and the Kingdom yet to come. We live in the in between, and that's a very difficult place to be. Things are changing, but we're not there yet.
An illustration of that could be the period when a child is in the womb. When my sister first fell pregnant, no one believed it. Not me, not the rest of my family; not even her. We had all waited ten years for that to happen, and to be honest we had all kind of stopped waiting. So when that first home test came out positive, we all thought it was some fluke. We still thought it was a fluke when multiple ones were positive after that.
That's pretty much what waiting on God is like, for me. Of course there's no confirmation that will make it real for me that God is at work in the background. Not even a growing belly. I will be fearful. I will be wracked with doubt. There is tension, because even though I know (I have faith that) God will save me, He hasn't saved me yet. What if He doesn't? And maybe I'm not doing enough?
So, it's pretty much about choices at that point. Do I wait? Do I trust that He will come through? What does that trust look like? Especially in a secular world, that no longer cares? What does trusting God even mean, and how does that fit into my life? Am I only trusting that I'll get into heaven (or that I won't go to hell) because I'm a Christian, or do I believe that God still actively intervenes in the affairs of men- in my affairs? Do I wait passively, expecting that God will descend from heaven on a cloud, with cherubs strumming harps and maybe a few electric guitars? Do I wait actively, doing what I can, and knowing that there's a point where I end, and the rest only God can do? And then, when God doesn't show up at the time that I set on the timetable that I emailed him yesterday, do I save myself?
With Sam, it was pretty clear that 9 months after conception, a child would be entering the world. What about more nebulous things- like waiting for God to heal? Or concrete things, like waiting for things to change in Zimbabwe? What about the day-to-day, like when I'm unemployed? I think that tension thing comes into play again. I need to do what I can do, and let God do what only He can. I need to keep hoping He will come through, but keep working, doing my best. I need to guard against passivity: lying on the ground in the field, waiting for God to plough the land, drop seed from heaven, cover it, tend it until it sprouts, water it, and then finally tell me when it's time for harvest. But I also need to know that as much as I can do those things myself, I don't know how the seed actually comes up, and I am not in complete control of the harvest. Planting is my work; the harvest is God's. That's tension.
I spoke a little in my last post about the vows one makes when disappointment sets in... Like when God doesn't show up on time. Saving myself is what I do when I'm doing God's work. Making vows to guard against future pain. Setting up counterfeit gods, that actually boil down to me playing God in my own life. (Since idols don't answer, what I am really doing is making God on my own terms- an idol being what I want God to be for me). Trusting in my own power to make my life work. Telling myself that when I do X, then everything will finally be ok. When I become smart enough to get that job, or beautiful enough, or rich enough, or whatever. So, vowing that I will save myself is setting myself up as an idol: I will be God to me. I will have enough power, strength and wisdom to do it all on my own. I will no longer wait for that other god, that nebulous, capricious one who never shows up when you call Him. I won't bow my knee to Him anymore, because He doesn't help me.
I have to search my heart a lot on this, because some of the vows I made, I made as a child. I decided that God must not care, because of what was happening around me, and to me; and so I must save myself, because God wasn't coming. And even though I have been a Christian most of my life, this idea has informed my worldview. I am a pretty logical person, so that small god- logic- is always lurking, justifying my decisions not to wait for God to show up. I respond to the tension between the now, and not-yet by looking at my circumstances, and shrinking my dreams, and cutting away everything that God could do, leaving only what I can do. Impoverished dreaming. Using the farming analogy, I consume my life in buying farmer's journals, and the best fertiliser, attending farming conferences, irrigating the field to death, pouring myself wholly and completely into ensuring I get the best harvest using the very best and latest scientific methods- as if I have control over everything that could come up from the ground. My tendency is not passivity, but the opposite. No longer believing God will come, I am the one who makes a golden calf: me, my own strength, my logic, my wisdom.
Here's what I should really do:
2Co 10:5 Putting an end to reasonings, and every high thing which is lifted up against the knowledge of God, and causing every thought to come under the authority of Christ; (BBE)
Because in the end, my knowledge is limited. (It's funny to think about, but I really think I know it all).
Hubris is a terrible thing- and I'm always standing at the edge of it.
