Seeing What I Want to See

I don't know about you, but 2010 was awesome for me.

Was every day of the year blue skies and rainbows? Oh, merciful goodness, no. By no means! There was heartache all over. There was impatient anger and indignant fury. There were lies and betrayals. There were lots of disappointments on some seriously fundamental levels. BAD STUFF HAPPENED this past year, make no mistake.

But 2010 is going to go down in my own personal history books as the year I finally let God take full control of my life, and that fact alone has made it by far my best non-1983 year to date.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

- Matthew 7:7-8

I will give thanks to You, LORD, with all my heart;

I will tell of all Your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and rejoice in You;

I will sing the praises of Your name, O Most High.

Those who know Your name trust in You,

for You, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek You.

- Psalm 9:1-2, 10

I will extol the LORD at all times;

His praise will always be on my lips.

I will glory in the LORD;

let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

Glorify the LORD with me;

let us exalt His name together.

I sought the LORD, and He answered me;

He delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to Him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame.

This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;

He saved him out of all his troubles.

- Psalm 34:1-6

You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek You;

I thirst for You,

my whole being longs for You,

in a dry and parched land

where there is no water.

I have seen You in the sanctuary

and beheld Your power and Your glory.

Because Your Love is better than life,

my lips will glorify You.

I will praise You as long as I live,

and in Your name I will lift up my hands.

I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;

with singing lips my mouth will praise You.

- Psalm 63:1-5

But if you seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

- Deuteronomy 4:29

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

- Hebrews 11:6

I hope you picked up a theme in all of that. In case you didn't, let me sum it up:

IF YOU LOOK FOR GOD, YOU WILL FIND HIM.

Before I go any further, let me make something perfectly clear: I do not understand atheism.

Yeah, I know what atheism is. I get that.

And yeah, I can see how it came about. That's not a problem.

But what I specifically don't understand is this idea that it's up to God to show us He exists instead of being up to us to find Him - especially when God specifically says, "If you look for Me, you will find Me," as I've already pointed out.

Bertrand Russell - 20th century British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, prolific writer, and renowned atheist - was once asked what he would say to God if, after his death, he found himself standing at the Judgment. How would he explain his staunch atheism?

"I will say: ‘I’m terribly sorry, but you didn’t give us enough evidence.’"

Now... I don't know what would have qualified as "enough evidence" in Russell's mind. Paul makes an appeal in the beginning chapters of Romans that earth itself is enough to point to God, and a similar theme is brought up in the first six verses of Psalm 19.

And I don't have any problem admitting that I'm not entirely up to snuff on the textual criticism of the Bible. I do not personally possess the knowledge sufficient to defend the early dates or the traditionally ascribed authorship of the New Testament. If there are doubts about the historical legitimacy and authenticity of the text, there will be doubts about the veracity of the text. This is an entirely understandable objection.

But let me, in my objection to the atheistic requirement that God provide the evidence for His existence, provide some evidence on His behalf.

I looked for God.

I found Him.

(This happens to be exactly what God said would happen.)

Now, it makes all the sense in the world to me to think that this would be enough to turn even the most stubborn of atheists, but of course, that's not the case, so let me go a little further.

You know those little sausage balls that show up every once in a while at the good church get-togethers and Christmas parties and wedding receptions and all that? The unbelievably delicious little perfect mixture of sausage, cheese, and crispy breading? You wanna know how to make those? Get ready, because here it comes:

3 cups Bisquick

1 lb. sausage

1 lb. cheese

Mix all ingredients. Scoop out mixture into little sausage ball-sized sausage balls.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until sausage balls are a crispy golden brown, like sausage balls ought to be.

You have now made sausage balls. Congratulations, everybody loves you.

Now... if you try that recipe and green bean casserole comes out of your oven, one of two things will be true. Option number one is that I lied to you. Option number two is that you didn't follow the recipe. Which of those two do you believe to be more likely? Would I have any reason to lie to you about how to make sausage balls? Come on. Think about this. I am a fat dude, and there is always the possibility of you sharing with me, so I will do everything within my power to ensure the existence of sausage balls.

It seems to me that the atheist position of asking God to prove Himself (when God has said that if we look for Him we will find Him) is a lot like someone saying that the recipe for sausage balls can't possibly be true because the sausage balls don't make themselves. If you're not willing to follow the recipe, you can't ever know if the recipe is actually right.

The big objection to me tying the theory of the recipe for sausage balls to God is, of course, going to be that we all know sausage balls exist because we've all seen them, smelled them, eaten them, thrown violent temper tantrums when we ran out of them... (Well, maybe not ALL of us have done that.)

But God - whom even the Bible says no man has ever seen (John 1:18, I John 4:12) - cannot be proven in the same way as sausage balls, right?

Well...

God says, "If you look for Me, you will find Me." I looked for God and I found Him. Turns out God was right! Isn't that neat?

Now I know that argument would probably never hold up against a committed atheist, especially an atheist who already knows that there's not even a possibility of a God. The atheist rebuttal to my "finding" God would inevitably boil down to the idea of my living under a delusion, separate from reason, in defiance of evidence to the contrary... After all, if I'm seeing God at work in my life, then I'm only seeing what I want to see, so it can't be true.

This is another one that blows my mind.

Dad and I wanted to see True Grit. So we went to the theater and saw True Grit. We both really enjoyed it.

Did we see what we wanted to see? Yep. Sure did.

So does that mean that we didn't actually see True Grit?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture, so now I can move on to the point I really wanted to make.

I've been framing this whole thing since the wall-o'-scripture in a Christian-versus-atheist light because it allows me to use really broad strokes and get the BIG idea across. But now, I've got to do some detail work and talk Christian to Christian.

If you're a Christian, I know you already believe in God. I know you already believe in Jesus. I know you already trust the Bible to be accurate.

But what I don't know is if you're actually taking it seriously.

Let me stress the "I don't know" part of that last sentence. I'm not saying you're not taking it seriously. I'm just saying that I don't know. You're the only one who can.

Well... You and God.

Ask yourself... Do you actually believe Jesus when He says, in Matthew 6, that if you seek God first, everything else will fall into place?

Do you actually believe Him when He says, in Matthew 7, that if you seek Him, you will find Him?

Do you actually believe what the writer of Hebrews says, in the 11th chapter of the letter, that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him?

Now... If you actually believe these things, do you actually live it out?

Is God really your first priority? Does God win out over your job? Your hobbies? Your family? Your own life?

You're the only person who can answer those questions, and God's the only other one who'll know if you're telling the truth.

If God IS your first priority, I don't doubt at all that you're seeing a lot of the same things I've been blessed enough to see over the past year. I don't doubt that you're seeing the fruits of the Spirit borne in your life. I don't doubt that you're overcoming evil with good. I don't doubt that you're finding yourself stronger and stronger in the face of temptation. I don't doubt that you're finding more and more each day that God is the only thing in your life that really fulfills you. I definitely don't doubt that you're overflowing with joy and can't keep from telling people just how amazing God is.

But if He's NOT... Let me encourage you - as someone who very, very, very recently did not have God anywhere near the center of his life - to seriously consider making 2011 the year that changes your life. Look for God. You will find Him. And when you do... words fail me for expressing the way the Glory of God will manifest itself in your life in a very real, very powerful, very holy way. I wish I could tell you in a way that you could truly understand. I wish I could just GIVE it to you, because it would change everything for you.

I just really wish you could see what I see, because I'm seeing exactly what I wanted to see, and it's better than I could have ever imagined.

As 2010 comes to a close, my prayer for myself is that I will not just hold firm to the faith that has completely redefined my very existence, but that I will continue to go deeper in that faith, deeper into the very heart of God, led by His Spirit, following His Son, and encouraging everyone I come in contact with to do the same. My prayer for you is similar: I pray that each day brings you closer and closer to His Will for your life than you were the day before.

I love you so much.

Happy New Year.

Is Crazy Really That Bad?

So... I really think it's at least a decent possibility that I might actually have gone completely crazy...

Because... uhh... God talks to me.

Yeah, I know. It's nuts.

But seriously, it's also incredibly awesome.

I don't really know where to go from there. It's not like you can just tell most folks "Oh, hey, my name is Aaron, and God talks to me," and then expect the conversation to really get much more interesting than that.

I know it sounds crazy. Believe it or not, it feels crazy. But really, there's no other way I can possibly describe what's going on other than that God is talking to me.

I don't really know what this is. I think, believe and feel that it's the Holy Spirit working in me in a way that a lot of us aren't really predisposed to believe happens anymore. I've been reading my Bible, I've been sharing what I'm going through with close friends, I've been praying non-stop... I'm really trying to make sure I'm hearing what I'm hearing, because if I'm just making it all up and calling it God on my own, then... well... I guess I'm crazy.

But really, is this kind of crazy so bad?

Everybody thought Noah was crazy.

I'm sure the same can be said of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel... Or what about John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, John the Revelator, Philip, Stephen... or even Jesus Himself?

I don't want to sound like I think I'm on par with any of those guys.

But I do know that we all worship the same God.

So why can't my God work the same miracles today that He worked back then?

More to the point, I guess... Instead of why can't He... Why wouldn't He?

Let me make this super clear here: yes, I am really saying that I really think that God is delivering personal messages directly to me. I don't hear a voice from the clouds, I just know that He's talking to me.

Part of why I know He's talking to me is that I'm not the only person He's talking to, nor am I part of some exclusive group.

I have friends who are on this wavelength - we're seeing the same stuff and it's kinda scary all around. We all want the same thing - to know God as deeply as we can - but there is just so much of today's world that has told us that God retired. There are so many in the world - in Christianity - who feel that God, for some vaguely defined reason, stopped working the same miracles as He once did in the Bible, and as I understand it, that's got something to do with the Bible itself existing. Since we have the Bible, God doesn't pull out the fireworks anymore.

Well... I have a counter-theory.

What if God didn't stop working the miracles at all? What if the only reason we ever stopped seeing God doing awesome stuff - like no-possible-explanation-for-this-except-God stuff - is because we stopped looking?

What if we don't see miracles because we don't think they're out there?

The Bible is pretty consistent in getting out the point that if you are genuinely looking for God, He'll show Himself to you.

So... score another one for the Bible being awesome...

Another part of what lets me know that this - whatever this is - is from God is that it doesn't contradict the Bible. In fact, everything I'm reading in the Bible makes me think that this is exactly what the Bible is talking about.

Is the fruit of the Spirit in your life because you chose to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled?

Or has the Holy Spirit borne that fruit in your life, changing you to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled?

I don't know about you, but I know that - for myself - it's the latter. I am a better person because God came into my life in such an unbelievably huge way. And I think "unbelievably" might be a pretty big word there.

Just how unbelievable is it for you that God talks to me? Just how unbelievable is it for you that God changed me? Just how unbelievable is it for you that He wants to do the same with you?

Just how alive is God for you?

Do you believe that He did all that crazy miracle stuff?

Or do you believe that He does all that crazy miracle stuff?

I don't want to claim anything special or unique here - it's not. The salvation of Jesus Christ is not unique to me. The Bible is not my own little special secret book. This is open for everyone. Every single person on this planet can get here if they choose to do so.

I really hope you will choose to do so, because trust me, it's awesome out here. Yeah, it's... it's weird at times. It's scary sometimes. Above all, it's enough to make a guy really question himself as well as his faith, but so far, the answer to all of the questions has consistently been GOD, in gigantic impossible-to-miss ways.

If God isn't talking to me, whatever it is that is talking to me - my own crazy mind or some other force unknown - is certainly telling me a whole lot about some really awesome stuff going down.

If God isn't talking to me, I have sent those letters and made those phone calls and seen those people and had those conversations that have ultimately ended up in somebody seeing God in a huge, huge, huge way - whether it's me or the people I'm talking to or even all of us... And it doesn't make a lot of sense for anything except God to be doing that.

If God isn't talking to me, then I have somehow found the exact right mental instability, because it has made me nicer, kinder, more patient, more joyous, more loving... It's made me a better man, being this crazy.

If this is crazy, it is an awesome crazy, and I really hope you get it.

I don't know - you might already be here. Maybe we just haven't talked about it. But one thing that I've found is that when you meet somebody else who is here, you know. Pretty much right away. As soon as God comes up - which is very quickly - you just know that you're talking to someone else who is seeing the same thing as you, and it's earth-shattering. It's SO big.

So very big.

And it's everywhere.

And it's all the time.

And it's real.

It's unmistakable. It's unavoidable. It's undeniable.

It's God.

But what if I'm just seeing what I want to see?

Well, since what I want to see is God in the first place... How is that bad?

And didn't Jesus in fact tell us that if we want to see God, that we would?

Isn't that the whole point of the ask-seek-knock deal? Ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened to you? Isn't that a promise from Jesus Himself?

But it sounds so crazy. God talks to me? Really? That's what the homeless guy on the sidewalk in front of the Walgreens said, too.

Well... Yeah... But like I said... People thought Noah was crazy. People thought Peter and the other apostles were drunk on Pentecost. In I Corinthians 14, Paul tells the Corinthians that when they're actually displaying their spiritual gifts, non-believers are just going to be confused and think that they're all crazy people.

So again... Is crazy really that bad?

Call me crazy if you must. I'll take it.

But I think God and I are going to some pretty amazing places with the crazy. So I'm definitely along for the ride.

Get on board with me. See where it goes. I promise you'll like it.

If you're already on board... Can't wait to see where we wind up together.

But either way... Let's talk about it.

"Big Sky"

I want you to see it.

On August 15, 2009 (the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, by the way), I was out in Ozark, Arkansas, up on Mulberry Mountain with two friends at the Harvest Music Festival, enjoying the wonderful - absolutely gorgeous - sounds of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils after seeing a sunset that I am not ashamed to say evoked tears.

As the envelope of dusk surrounded the horizons and the stars began to multiply in the darkness, I leaned back and gazed upward into the vastness of the universe, and Heaven gazed back. The stars were in rare brilliant form that night. The sky was perfectly clear; not a whiff of a cloud remained from that unbelievably gorgeous sunset. (After all, what is a sunset without the right clouds?) And even though the lights from the stage and the parking area were still nearby, we were seated in just the right spot so none of those lights got directly into our eyes. The other light pollution - that awful orange glow from the cities - was barely perceptible, we were so far out in the remote stretches of the mountains.

As the night went on, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils left the stage, and we were now all just enjoying the breeze of the evening, sharing a lazy conversation between close friends, staring into the glory of the night, waiting for Umphrey's McGee to play.

(That last part about Umphrey's McGee has no bearing on the story other than me bragging to the three of you who read this and care about Umphrey's McGee.)

As I stared - slack-jawed with the same awe and wonder I felt stargazing with my Wolf Scout Den in my backyard at seven years old - I couldn't help but take in the dazzling brilliance of the constellations. It was no mystery to me in that moment how the ancients were able to pick out so many of those shapes - how could they be avoided? I was seeing constellations I couldn't even name, but I knew their shapes. The shapes just popped out! They were inevitable! It was incredible, but it was exhausting. I jumped from constellation to constellation with this palpable excitement, so taken in with all the details in each one that I couldn't just pick one and stay with it. I had to keep looking at the next one.

And that's when Ben suddenly jumped in his seat and shouted out to me, "AARON! AARON! DID YOU SEE IT?"

I sat in stunned silence for a second. Ben might be an excitable guy, but that much of a reaction means I just missed the Millenium Falcon flying by or something equally impressive.

"Uhh... no...? Don't think I did, dude... What was it?"

"THE SKY! IT BECAME ONE! JUST... ONE! BIG! IT'S SO BIG!"

"What?" The sky is one? Of course it is. Did you think there were three skies? And yeah, it's big. It's space. Space is big. "What are you talking about, man?"

"...oh. Well... Nevermind. You'll... ugh. Just... Nevermind." I could tell Ben was disappointed. Whatever it was he had seen, it was impressive, but it wasn't something he could properly describe, apparently.

"OK..."

So I went back to staring at the sky, still jumping from constellation to constellation. I finally got to a point where I was starting to appreciate the stars between the constellations. The nameless twinkling dots and sparkling spots waaaaaay off in the distance, the ones I could only see on nights like this, they were the ones that held my attention for a while. And then I noticed something shifting.

At first it was subtle. If you've done much stargazing, you've either heard or figured out the trick about getting a good long look at faint stars with the naked eye. You can't look directly at them, that's the thing. You've got to look just off of it. You'll actually see it better if it isn't your main focus.

Well, if you're sitting in a field on top of a mountain in Northwest Arkansas on a crystal clear night without any lights in the sky other than the ones God put there, it doesn't matter where you look, you're gonna be not-directly-looking at a WHOLE LOT of stars.

So your vision spreads out a little.

And as you slowly scan your way across the sky, absorbing more and more of the billions and billions and billions of stars in front of you, your vision continues to widen and broaden and spread.

And then, in one sudden, jarring twinkling of an eye, everything falls into place. From horizon to horizon in any and all directions, you just see it. It's all there. The whole sky, all at once. The sky becomes one vast expanse filling your entire field of vision. And it is just.

So.

Very.

Big.

"WHOA! BEN! BEN! I SAW IT! DUDE! WOW! THAT'S AWESOME! IT'S HUGE!"

"I KNOW, RIGHT?!?"

"WOW! IT'S SO AWESOME!"

I know that, right now - unless you've had a "big sky" of your own - you're thinking like I was: "Well, yeah, of course the sky's big. It's the sky. It's space. Space is big. Duh." But I promise you, unless you've seen what I'm talking about, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

It is so unbelievably BIG.

It's so big - so very, very, very big - that even though I was sitting down when it hit me, I still lost my sense of balance and nearly fell out of the chair. Once I saw it, it was inescapable. Everywhere I looked - unless I was looking straight down at the ground - I was just aware of the hugeness of the sky over me. Even if there was just a corner of the sky with one or two stars twinkling in the peripheral of one eye, it was still incomprehensibly huge. So big. So, so, so big.

And the really fun part is that it hasn't left me yet. Nearly a year out now, and still every time I go outside, day or night, clear or cloudy, city or country, it doesn't matter - I look up, and I see the enormity of it all. I look up and I still am aware of how insignificant I am on a cosmic scale. I'm 6'3", and have been known to tip the scales at 400+ pounds. I am a big guy. I am not accustomed to feeling small. But when I realized the enormity of the cosmos in one fell swoop... Oh, I was so small. I was a mote of dust. No, no, scratch that... I wasn't even a mote of dust. I was one of the gluons that holds together the quarks that make up the protons that make up the atoms that make up the elements that make up the compounds that make up the molecules that make up that mote of dust. I was so aware of my infinitesimal insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe...

And it was glorious.

Ever since that night, whenever Ben and I wind up out with the guys under a big open stretch of the heavens, we try to help them see it. We try to get them to see "big sky." We try to show them what we saw.

I want you to see it.

I've been on a really interesting journey into new depths with my faith over the past two years and some change. I've been in completely unfamiliar territory at times, and I'm still breaking new ground every day. I'm still experiencing new things that make me think about God in a different way, and I experience those things all the time. It's been an exponential amount of growth, especially since mid-November. Things have just REALLY been flying. It's been really intense at times, but through it all, God has just shown me more and more and more and more of His Power and His Glory. It's been a trip.

And it's still going.

I don't want to sound arrogant here. I don't want it to sound like I've got some big direct line into God that others don't, so therefore I'm better than anyone else. Believe me, I'm not. I don't have anything anyone else can't have. I don't know anything anyone else can't know. I don't see anything anyone else can't see.

But there are people out there who don't see it. There are people out there - I talk to them every day - who don't see how God is not just a part of your life, He IS Life.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because it's an important point: a relationship with God - true Christianity - is not something you do, it's what you are. It redefines you.

It is possible to go through life making time for God in between everything else, and that will bring moments of true connection, but they'll be moments. They'll be fleeting. It will be a mountaintop experience filled with long-dormant emotions, churning a stagnant spirit into a frothing, raging, active pool of activity, but it will die down again, leading to a tranquil calm that gives way to the same stagnancy without ever doing anything but stirring things around.

But what if people really made God the first priority, instead of squeezing Him in where they could?

And I don't mean setting aside the first part of the day for a devotional thought and prayer - although that is a wonderful tool which definitely makes an impact on the day - but instead making God the first thought in every moment, the subject at the forefront of the mind at all times, the never-wavering, never-changing, always-present, always-steady fixed object that we have our sights completely set on, the target we are irresistibly drawn to...

What if God was the only thing that mattered?

If you were completely focused on God, how do you think you'd act around other people?

How would you treat your family? Your significant other? Your kids? Your parents? Your co-workers? Your superiors? Your subordinates? Your insubordinates?

How would you treat yourself?

How would you treat God?

How do you think God would treat you?

I've gotta tell you - I don't know where you are. I wish I did. Because if you're farther along than me, I want to know how God got you there. But if you've not made it to where I am yet, I really want to help you get closer, because trust me, it's amazing out here.

I really want you to know God. I don't want you to know Him the way I know Him - that's between me and Him. I want you to know Him the way He wants you to know Him. I want you to know Him intimately. I want you to know Him genuinely. I want you to know Him first.

I want you to be in Nature and see His design in such a way that you cannot help but be amazed with every single thing laid out before you.

I want you to be in church and know His people in such a way that you cannot help but be moved with joy and compassion for every single one of them, anxious to show them the same Love that God showed you, because you know that He loves them, too.

I want you to be in silence and hear His voice in such a way that you cannot help but understand that He has a plan for you, every single day, and that you can know that plan and follow that plan and feel the indescribable thrill that comes through seeing the power of God manifest itself in your life in ways that you know - that you know, beyond any shadow of a doubt - can only be a direct result of the work of God.

I want you to be there because I want you to feel what I'm feeling. I want you to know what I know. I want you to see what I see.

I want you to see it.

Some of you already do. And that's amazing. I love it. And you know when somebody's seeing the same thing as you. When it becomes the only thing you're really looking at, it becomes unmistakable when you meet someone else who gets it, someone else who is completely locked in on the same thing. There is a unity in the Spirit that is positively electric and impossible to miss.

I want you to see it.

There's a calm that comes with it. There's a sense of complete serenity in knowing - really, entirely, personally knowing - that your sins are all forgiven and all removed and all forgotten. There's a joy in knowing that you've got a direction in life that will make an impact on an eternal scale. There's a passion in knowing that God has a direct connection, a deep commitment, a holy investment in what YOU do, in where YOU go, in what YOU say, in who YOU are.

I want you to see it.

There's an understanding that comes to you in the Bible when you have God at the absolute center of your life, providing the Director's Commentary with everything you read. There's a sense of connection between everything you do, because all that is in your life is part of one grand symphony of praise, an orchestrated movement of hundreds of different parts to create one sweeping work, with ups and downs, highs and lows, forte and piano, lights and darks...

I want you to see it.

I want you to know what life is like when you finally take that step into the mystic with God. I want you to feel the exhilaration of giving up all control - ALL of it! - into God's hands and seeing where He leads you. I want you to feel the freedom that comes with fully immersing yourself into God's Spirit and living completely, completely, completely in line with His Will for you.

I want you to see it.

I want you to know what it's like to have a relationship with God that doesn't require anyone but you and God. I also want you to know what it's like to have a relationship with God that won't let you keep it just between you and God. I want you to know what it's like to talk to God like you're talking to your best friend, but I want you to know what it's like to talk to a complete stranger about God because you can't help but talk about Him.

I want you to see it.

Let us acknowledge the LORD;

let us press on to acknowledge Him.

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.

- Hosea 6:3

I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord;

apart from you I have no good thing."

- Psalm 16:2

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

- Deuteronomy 6:4-5

I want you to see it.

I really, really want you to see it.

I want you to see Him.

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part IV

So here we go with Balaam, one more time...

In the first part, I talked about how it is possible to know who God is and still worship him wrong. In Balaam's case, he knew enough about God that God spoke directly to him, and he also knew that he would not be able to do or say anything other than what God told him to say. But just because he knew God, that didn't mean that he worshiped God. Balaam tried - three times - to go directly against the Will of God, even after God specifically told Balaam what His Will was.

In the second part, I talked about how we can fall into a trap sometimes where we focus so much on the Word of God that we neglect the Will of God. A comprehensive knowledge of the Bible is a wonderful thing for a Christian to have, and there are all sorts of benefits to studying the Word with other Christians as well as on your own. The Bible is here for a reason - but that reason is to give us a guide to God, not to be God. The Bible is our primary source for understanding on who God is and what He has to say to us, but it is not our only source, nor the ultimate source, for knowing who God wants us to be. God is the ultimate source for that. The Bible is filled with the wisdom of centuries' worth of people who hungered after God's righteousness. But a lot of that wisdom is very clearly saying that we have the opportunity to develop an intimate, open, personal relationship with God Himself, a relationship through which He speaks TO US through the Holy Spirit. In the drive to understand the Scriptures, it is important that we don't forget what the Scriptures are actually about. The same Holy Spirit that led everyone from Moses to Jeremiah to Matthew to Paul to John to write their portions of what we have now collected as the Holy Bible is the same Holy Spirit that is eagerly hoping to speak to each of us today.

And that's what the third part was all about: how the workings of the Spirit will produce changes in your life beyond those which you can produce in yourself. The circumcision of the heart does not come from knowing the Bible from cover to cover. It comes from opening up to the presence of God's Holy Spirit. That presence is very powerful and very real, but it is still up to us to decide to let that Spirit work in our lives.

There's one last little thing I want to look at from the story of Balaam that ties it all together.

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"

Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?"

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there."

And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me." Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert.

- Numbers 23:25-24:1 (emphasis added)

What does that sorcery part mean? What was Balaam trying to do?

Balaam offered sacrifices to God - seven rams and seven bulls each of the three times, on seven separate altars - in an effort to receive a favor from God in the form of a curse on Israel, but God instead blessed Israel through Balaam's mouth each time.

So it seems obvious to me that God rejected Balaam's sacrifices. Not because they were improper sacrifices, but because the motivation behind the sacrifice - defying the directly spoken Will of God - was contrary to what God desired.

And that's what I want to talk about.

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, "This man is the divine power known as the Great Power." They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin."

Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me."

- Acts 8:9-24

Simon knew that God is powerful. He had witnessed Philip working miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit. Simon knew that the Holy Spirit was being given to the Christians in Samaria, and - being one of those Christians - he wanted to be a part of that power. But his understanding of sorcery rubbed off on his understanding of God.

Simon, like Balaam, had fallen into a trap of believing that the power of God was a commodity to be used, something to be controlled, a force that could be turned to his advantage, bringing him wealth, power, and notoriety before men.

Peter sets Simon straight, rebuking him for trying to buy the power of God for his own use. Simon wasn't wrong to want the Holy Spirit. And really, I don't think he was wrong for wanting to spread the Holy Spirit. Notice again that he asks Peter and John to give him the Holy Spirit so that he could also spread the Holy Spirit himself in the same way that they did.

But that's where the flaw comes into his thinking - he wants power, even though it is a good and Holy power, for his own ends.

Balaam's entire existence was centered around using the power of God to further his own ends. And apparently it worked sometimes! In Numbers 22:6, Balak says of Balaam, "I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed." Balaam apparently had some kind of working relationship with God... But it was a relationship based on Balaam's short-sighted desire to use God's power for his own personal gain instead of a desire to let God's power be used in him to further God's own agenda.

At the root of that thinking is the idea that God can be bought off. The idea - common to Balaam and Simon - is that by performing certain rituals, by acting a certain way, by going through certain motions, they could get God to do them a favor. They thought they could put God in their pocket. This flawed view of how God works was shared by Jephthah, as well.

Bad news is... It didn't stop with Balaam, Jephthah, or Simon.

It's actually still around today.

Let's say you're at work (or school or whatever) and the day is over. You head outside, keys in hand, you get to your car, open it up, sit down, and just before you start it up, you realize that there's someone sitting in the passenger seat...

And it's that cranky lady from the DMV.

The one who failed you for your license test.

Twice.

She's already got a scowl on her face. The pencil is sharp and the clipboard is ready to take her incessant abuses as she marks every little failure for your drive home.

You start the car. You hear a slight "Hmph." She furiously scribbles a note and marks a big X somewhere on the top of the form.

That's when you remember to put your seatbelt on. Searching for some vague clue of approval in her face, you realize there is none to be had, and you put the car into gear.

As you come to the four-way stop in the parking lot (it's a big parking lot, OK?), the car to your right stops just a half-second before you do. As you sit there, waiting for the other car to go, you realize that its driver is applying make-up, talking on the phone, flossing, and steering with her knees all at once. After a minute passes, you finally decide to just go ahead and go through the stop sign. This is met with another quiet grunt of disapproval from Ms. Crankietta McCrabbybritches riding shotgun over there, who once again scribbles furiously.

This process continues as you begin your drive home. Reaching down to turn up the stereo? Scribble-grunt-scribble. Driving with one hand on the steering wheel? Grunt-scribble-scribble. Going 47 in a 45? Scribble-scribble-grunt-scribble-grunt-scoff-scribble.

By the time you're actually on the main road back to the house, you're so unnerved, you're so shaken, you're so paranoid about every little thing you do being met with the horrid disapproval of the horrid woman sitting next to you. You're sweating bullets, but you don't DARE take your hands from 10 and 2 to adjust the A/C. You're so fixed on the speedometer that you're distracted from the road, which of course leads to all sorts of sharp turns and slam-on-the-brakes stops at red lights.

It becomes the most miserable driving experience of your entire life, and it takes you twice as long as usual to get home - not because you're being forced to obey the law, but because you're so focused on nothing BUT obeying the law that you actually forget where you're going and how to get there. And when you DO get home, she hands you a list a mile long of all of your infractions, major and minor, moving and parking, down to the last detail - like using your turn signal at 998 feet from the turn instead of the full 1,000. She tells you that it is because - and only because - she's in a good mood that you actually passed and get to keep your license. If she had chosen to actually be fair in judging you, you'd be taking the bus everywhere you went for the rest of your life.

Far too many people view their relationship with God like the relationship with that DMV lady. It's as if God is constantly looking down on us, grunting His disapproval and jotting down notes for every little mistake we make, champing at the bit to tell us how badly we messed up once we finally get Home. They're convinced that God looks at us all and sees how badly we're all messing up, and it's only because of the mysterious force of God's Grace that we're even allowed to keep on living, much less eventually enter Heaven. And that trickles down into how those people see others. They wouldn't dare dream of judging anyone, for as they very well know, the Bible says, "Judge not lest ye be judged." But even in their not-judging, they're still pretty sure that everybody at that liberal church up the road is going to hell, and they know for a FACT that the long-haired guy walking down the road on Sunday morning with a lit cigarette in his lips is going to hell.

That mindset comes from the same stock as Balaam's belief that if he made the right sacrifices, he could get God to go against His own Will. It shares the same root as Jephthah's belief that if he paid God off in lip service and sacrifices, then God owed him one. It's the same fault that Simon had in thinking that if he gave somebody else the right stuff, then God would give him what he wanted.

There's this idea that if we go to the right church and read the right Bible and have the right friends and pray the right prayers and wear the right clothes and have the right haircut and say the right words and do the right whatever it is you want to do, then God will do you a big favor and let you into Heaven. But the only way that'll work is if you go to the EXACT right church and read the EXACT right Bible and have the EXACT right friends and do everything else EXACTLY right.

What that idea misses is that it's still just going through the motions. And when you're focused on the motions instead of the destination, you are bound to get lost.

In our walk with God, we are not meant to be focused on the path itself - we are meant to be focused on God.

And when we are truly focused on God, we realize that Christianity is not something we can do. Christianity is what we have to be.

If I were to put paint to a canvas, I would only produce an unmitigated disaster. I am not an artist.

My sister? People seriously pay solid cash money for her paintings. She is an artist. It's what she does because it's who she is. She can't stop. She doesn't know any other way to live. She didn't take classes to become an artist - she took classes to become a more skilled and refined artist. She didn't decide to be an artist - she decided to focus exclusively on art because it already took up so much of her life to begin with.

I am getting to a point where I don't know how to be anything else but a Christian, and that's because I finally stopped trying to do the right Christian thing and instead focused on being the right Christian man. My nature defines my actions, and my nature is defined by the Holy Spirit that lives in me, by the redemption I have found in Jesus Christ, and by the complete renewal of everything that makes me who I am by God Almighty.

I've learned a lot from Balaam. I've learned that I've got to be sure that I'm not just saying that God leads my life, but that I am actually putting my will aside to allow God to replace my will with His.

I've learned that I've got to let God's Holy Spirit work in me in such a way that when I read God's Word, I actually understand what He's saying to me, not just what I want Him to say to me. God's Will is my ultimate goal - God's Word is another step in getting me there.

I've learned that when I actually do get everything in me out of the way, God can do some pretty amazing stuff through me. I can take NO credit for any of the things He does - I was only tangentially involved at best.

And I've learned that it's not about what I do. It's not about what you do. It's not about what they do.

It's about who we are.

You can't do church.

You have to be church.

Go, then.

Be church.

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part III

Beginning in the 22nd chapter of Numbers, we see the story of Balaam. From that story, there are three things that stuck out to me as being true:

1. It is possible to know who God is and worship Him wrong.
2. It is possible to earnestly seek the Word of God and still disobey Him.
3. It is possible for God to speak through you, even when you don't know what to say.

Two weeks ago, I discussed the first point, using the example from my own life experience of the church that was more focused on following the letter of the law than the truth of the Spirit. By focusing on one of the small things that divide us (instrumental worship) instead of the large things that unite us (the love we share for God, the redemption we have in Jesus Christ, and the common workings of the same Holy Spirit in all of our lives), this church missed an opportunity to serve its community in a very real, immediate, and tangible sense. In their efforts to live out the perfect definition of God's Will, their focus became caught up in the smaller concerns that only matter for about three hours out of any given week, instead of focusing on the larger things that would have carried ramifications throughout the rest of this life and all of the next one. In their quest for God, they missed the point of serving Him.

When Jesus, on the Sabbath, healed the man born blind in John 9, the Pharisees called Him a sinner. In Matthew 12, the disciples were hungry on the Sabbath and began to pick grains from a field so they could eat. The Pharisees again accused Jesus and His disciples of sin because they broke the Sabbath - but Jesus rebukes them, telling them that their focus was in the wrong place, quoting scripture to them to prove His point:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

- Hosea 6:6

Even David, reeling in the guilt and shame of his sins with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, knows what God truly wants from us:

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart,

O God, You will not despise.

- Psalm 51:16-17

Last week, I talked about how that Pharisaical mindset - the view that the Bible itself is the Will of God - should be transformed into an understanding that God's Will transcends anything we can ever know here on Earth, and that the Bible is still just part of God's approach to help us better see Him.

Now, understand me here... It is an enormous, indispensable, undeniable, and absolutely true part of that approach! I firmly believe God has given us the Bible that we have in the form that it is in today for a reason, and that reason is that we may come to better know Him.

But it is important to understand that the Bible alone is not enough to ensure a good relationship with God.

Just like the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah without understanding what it meant until the Holy Spirit led Philip to step in, it is possible for us to read Scripture all day long without it changing our lives, even if we're open to its message, without some interaction from the Holy Spirit. And just like Isaac Asimov wrote his Guide to the Bible without any faith behind it, it is even possible for us to fully understand the Bible and still not encounter God.

It is only through the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can grow closer to God.

"There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

I'm really trying to make moves towards seeing everything in my life as a miracle. I'm doing a pretty decent job of it, too, I think.

And I'm sure you've heard people say, "Well, of course God still works miracles today! Every sunrise is a miracle!" And... yeah... but at the same time... no, not really. That kind of answer is a justification, an attempt to understand the idea that God still works miracles in today's world, despite the apparent lack of "Lazarus, come out!" type miracles.

Don't get me wrong - sunrises are amazing. I have seen some that reduced me to tears, they were so beautiful.

But the really miraculous part of some of those sunrises was the coming of the new day - the marker that told me and whoever I was with that we had survived the night, had made it through the darkness into the new morning, and that the nine-hour discussion we'd just had was worth it, because we were coming through intact on the other side.

And you know what... There are plenty of stories that I've heard - even a few that are directly in my life - about people who, by all scientific and medical reasoning and understanding, should have died, but God chose to intervene in their lives and restore their bodies to a livable health, at least for a little while. And yeah, those miracles are amazing too.

But that's still not quite as amazing to me as the miracles I've heard about, seen, and - above all - experienced in which God chooses to intervene and restore a person's spiritual health.

The body? It will eventually expire. It doesn't matter how many push-ups you can do, it doesn't matter how many push-ups you can't do. Your body is temporary.

Your soul? That's eternal. That's forever. That's important.

The power of God made manifest in the otherwise inexplicable removal of someone's cancer... Yes, that's amazing. Yes, that's powerful. Yes, that's real! But it's a lot like trying to bail water out of a boat with a Coke can when the hole in the bottom is the size of a basketball. Yeah, you might slow the process a bit, but in the end, there's no way that boat ain't goin' down sooner or later.

But the power of God shown in the miraculous transformation of my heart, soul, and mind... That's the good stuff. That's the stuff that really matters. That's what God is after - and it is what we should be after, too.

(At this point I feel that it is important for me to point out that taking care of your body is still a good idea - smoking is bad for you, it's OK to have a vegetarian meal every once in a while, thirty minutes of exercise every day is a really solid idea, and always make sure the door to your microwave is fully sealed while it is in operation.)

The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

- Deuteronomy 30:6

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

- Romans 2:28-29

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

- Colossians 2:9-12

The circumcision of the heart - much like the original circumcision of the not-heart - can be a painful process. But it is through the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we find our own selves being peeled back, exposing more of Christ in us. When we enter our relationship with God through His Son, we begin a journey that leads us closer and closer to His true nature with - hopefully - every step. I say hopefully because it is still entirely possible for us to thwart the Will of God here by ignoring the works of the Spirit within our lives.

And I don't think that many of us ever necessarily choose to ignore the Spirit, but it's awfully easy to do in today's World. We live in a World that tells us that we can't ever do anything unless we do it ourselves. We are surrounded by a World that wants us to look into ourselves and see who we really are so we can be the best we can be on our own.

And what we've got to remember is that we're not part of this World. We can't do it on our own. No matter how good our own personal best is, it's still not anything worth calling good. Good in our lives only comes from God. We - on our own - are not righteous.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

- Romans 3:21-24, emphasis added

Our righteousness - all of it - depends entirely upon our faith in Jesus. Without that faith, without that connection to God, we are nothing, and any perceived righteousness on our part is empty, because it is not connected to the source of true righteousness - it does not come into our lives from the Spirit.

So I say all that to say this.

In Numbers 22:38, 23:12, 23:26, and 24:13, Balaam asks Balak, king of Moab, "Didn't I tell you I can only say what God puts in my mouth?"

And it is on that point that I want to be a lot more like Balaam.

I want to be so in tune with the Holy Spirit that when I open my mouth, I do not speak - God speaks through me. I want to know that what I am saying is the truth - I want to know it undeniably comes from God.

I have moments of that. Not many. But they're there.

A few weeks ago, I felt the gentle nudge inside me that said, "You need to send that message." I ignored it, because I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to come on too strong. I didn't want to be seen as a weirder guy than I already am. I didn't want to stick my nose where it didn't belong.

But I still felt that nudge. "You really need to send that message." And I ignored it again. I didn't want to overstep my bounds. I didn't want to risk alienating a friend. I didn't want to take any risks, because risks meant I could lose everything.

But the nudge was getting so strong I couldn't ignore it. "No, Aaron... You really need to send that message." I couldn't distract myself. I couldn't sleep. I just couldn't say no anymore.

So I sent the message. I felt two things once it was out of my hands - fear and relief. I felt fear that I was wrong, that I had been deluding myself, convincing myself that I needed to step in to something that wasn't my place, fear that I was going to mess up a friendship I care about. But I felt relief - relief that I had done what the undeniable voice in me had asked of me. And I fully believe that this voice was, and is, the Holy Spirit, working within my life.

A few days later, I got a reply. The very first thing I saw in that reply was "I needed this Aaron, and I don't know how you knew it." It was at that moment that I was overcome with tears, joy, and an unstoppable desire to sing my humble praise and adoration to God.

That message was not from me. It was from God. It was the Holy Spirit moving in me to send that message. My friend didn't know how I knew to send that message. And here's the thing - I didn't know, either! I had no way of knowing, other than God telling me.

Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

- I Thessalonians 5:19-22

When I tell you that God speaks to me, what is your reaction? Do you believe it, or do you picture me wearing an aluminum foil hat to keep out the government's rays?

Is it really so crazy to think that God might actually still be active - in a HUGE way - in the world today?

Is it really so crazy to think that God might be active in your life if you'll let Him?

I promise you... I am nothing special. I haven't got much of anything figured out. But I am slowly, slowly, slowly learning more of how to truly listen to God. His voice is sometimes still the gentle whisper after the earthquake and the fire... And sometimes He's the loud, commanding voice telling the storms to be still.

I've not perfected the skill of listening to the Spirit with a completely open heart. I still mess up. I still mess up a lot. But I've started to notice that my slip-ups come when I focus more on myself, on my own desires, on getting MY way instead of patiently, prayerfully, and purposefully listening for the words of the Holy Spirit in my heart, soul, and mind.

But the one truth I've managed to grasp is that the only way you're going to hear the Spirit is if you listen. It is my prayer for you that God opens your ears - your heart, your soul, your mind - and lets you hear what He's really got to say to YOU, because I promise you - it's worth hearing.

I've got one more thing I want to get out of Balaam next week. I'm looking forward to it. Hope you are, too.

Pray for an open spirit.

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes) part II

So last week I started talking about Balaam. From the story of Balaam, I pulled out three ideas that I believe to be true:

1. It is possible to know who God is and worship Him wrong.
2. It is possible to earnestly seek the Word of God and still disobey Him.
3. It is possible for God to speak through you, even when you don't know what to say.

Last week's post was about the first point. Sometimes, in our zeal to please God (which is a righteous thing) we cling so strongly to our own idea of who God is and what He wants that we don't allow Him to change our minds and hearts so that we can actually SEE Him and show Him to those around us. We may know God - but we don't quite understand Him, sometimes. When our desire to be right beats out our desire to be righteous, we start to mess things up.

And that has a lot to do with our attitude towards the means through which God reaches us.

How is it that there are so many people in this world who can quote the Bible, chapter and verse, for hours on end... and yet have no idea what it actually means?

Isaac Asimov was a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant man. My goodness, was that guy smart. He was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University, was vice-president of Mensa, president of the American Humanist Association, and has published works in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System. If that isn't some nerd cred, I don't know what is.

Among his published works are some incredible pieces of science-fiction, as well as non-fiction, history, the three-volume set Understanding Physics, and his world-renowned guides to Shakespeare and the Bible. If you're a serious student of Shakespeare, you can't go without Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. And if you're a serious student of the Bible... Well, yeah, Asimov's pretty tough to beat there, too.

The interesting thing is that Isaac Asimov was an atheist.

I would dare say that Isaac Asimov knew the Bible better than most people. Certainly better than me! You guys have no idea how much time I spend writing these entries just reading entire books of the Bible, trying to remember where that one verse was... about the thing... where God said something... to someone...

I wouldn't expect Asimov to have the same reaction to the Bible as I do. He didn't believe in it. He didn't believe in it before he wrote his Guide, and he didn't believe in it after he wrote his Guide, either.

But within Christianity... Yeah, OK, I'll admit I kinda expect people to have the at least a similar reaction to the Bible as my own. And that reaction is an understanding that my own understanding is entirely secondary to the wisdom and truth contained within the Word of God.

Let us consider, for a moment, sex. Sex is kind of a big deal. I understand it's pretty fantastic. There is, in fact, an entire book of the Bible that focuses pretty strongly on sex.

But God has made it clear through the Bible that sex is meant for - reserved for - marriage. One man, one woman, one relationship. That's the point.

But I've come in contact with this idea that sex outside of marriage is OK so long as you're not married - because then, well, obviously, you're not cheating on your spouse. How can you cheat on a spouse you don't have? Brilliant!

Except oh wait that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

You remember that verse that says "God cannot be mocked"? This counts as mocking God. God doesn't have loopholes. You're not gonna pull a fast one on ol' God.

God is not a man that He should lie,

nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.

Does He speak and then not act?

Does He promise and not fulfill?

- Numbers 23:19

That little tidbit comes from Balaam's second oracle- the blessing he poured out on Israel in his second attempt to curse them. Earlier - like, 11 verses earlier - God said through Balaam, "How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?" And yet Balaam insists on cursing those whom God has not cursed, whom God has specifically told Balaam not to curse.

And sometimes we insist on our own understanding, as well, even though God is right in front of us, screaming in our ears, telling us that we're missing the picture.

Let's go back to sex (since it's such an interesting topic): how did Jesus deal with people whose sins were of a sexual nature?

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

- John 8:1-11

So that's Jesus. And there are other examples worth considering - the Samaritan woman at the well, for starters, plus the "sinful" woman who wiped Jesus' feet with her hair.

But what about us?

How do we deal with people - especially women - when we find out they've made mistakes of a sexual nature?

Do we smile with tears in our eyes and embrace them with the love of Jesus Christ and His church, and tell them that God will forgive their sins, just as He forgave our own sins?

Or do we look down on them? Do we call them names? Do we heap scorn and rejection on them, ostracize them from the family of God, and then have the audacity to tell them that they earned the reputation they now carry?

May God have mercy on you and comfort you if you wind up pregnant outside of marriage in most of the churches I have known in my life, because the people that God has called to be the ones who show you mercy and comfort certainly aren't going to be the ones to do it.

And we don't just do that with sex. Yeah, we blow sexual sins WAY out of proportion (lying is just as much of a sin as anything sexual [Revelation 21:8, look it up], but you don't see radical protest groups at military funerals with signs that read "GOD HATES POLITICIANS," do you?), but they're not the only thing people completely lose their minds over.

Sin is bad. I get it.

But you know what beats sin, every time? Grace. Truth. Mercy. Love.

Yelling does not make sin go away. Changing the Constitution does not make sin go away. Bombing does not make sin go away.

Christ makes sin go away.

And I meet so many people - so, so, so many people! - who say that they "love the sinner, hate the sin..." And I can't say that they don't. But I think I can say that their distinction between sinner/sin might be a little blurry.

And I think that problem comes from a misunderstanding of the Bible on a fundamental level.

Before I go any further... No, I don't have a Bible degree. No, I can't read Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. No, I can't really tell you a lot about the Elohist/Jahwist sources in the Old Testament or the "Q" source for the New Testament. I realize that all of those are important things, and if I am seeing further, it is only because I am standing on the shoulders of people who had better luck with Machen than I did.

But I don't for a second believe that the Bible is an incomprehensible text that only the highly-educated few can ever hope to even begin to understand, and I very much doubt that any of you reading this believe that, either.

And yet, far too often, we live our lives with this sort of fear of the Bible. There are things we don't understand and questions we don't have answers to that the Bible is painfully silent over. And so, in our attempts to seize righteousness, we do exactly what we've been told not to do - we make the Bible a list of rules. We make the Bible the ultimate truth of the universe. We make the Bible the focus.

Folks - I love the Bible. But I do not follow the Bible. I follow Christ. The Bible is not God. It is about God. It is not the ultimate expression of the Will of God. God's Will is the ultimate expression of itself. The Bible is not the only way God speaks to us in today's world - it's just the only one that all of us can read at the same time.

I want to make sure that this is clearly understood. I do believe, fully, that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (II Timothy 3:16-17)

But I also believe that there are still plenty of "ignorant and unstable people" who "distort... the Scriptures... to their own destruction." (II Peter 3:16)

It has become painfully obvious to me that a knowledge of the Bible is not enough. After all, Satan, tempting Christ in the wilderness, quoted Scripture. (I fully realize that it's just as possible for me to be Satan quoting Scripture here as anything, but bear with me, I promise I have a point that's actually backed by Scripture.)

Let us consider a few things.

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.

- I Corinthians 11:4

So, guys, you take off your hat when you pray, right? When I went to Uplift with the Heritage Place youth group last summer, I saw way, way, waaaaaaaaay too many youth ministers who didn't. Is that just a Southern thing? Or is that a God thing? I mean, it is pretty plainly stated in the Bible, isn't it? And then right after that...

And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.

- I Corinthians 11:5-6

So, ladies... How many of you still cover your heads when you pray? How many of you are rockin' a short haircut? How do you feel about your relationship with God? Is it tied into the length of your hair, or is it something a bit more internal than that? And then there's...

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

- I Timothy 2:9-10

So braided hair is sinful? Oh, man. My sister is going to hell. Especially from Kindergarten to 6th grade. Gold? Pearls? Expensive clothes? Apparently Paul's got it out for my Grandmother, too!

Or maybe... Maybe maybe maybe...

Just maybe...

Maybe we should consider that the Bible is not written to us.

It is written for us, but it is not written to us. It is written to people who lived, ate, drank, worked, slept, married, worshiped and died some 18-19 centuries before we were even born. It's a product of a culture that we don't live in - that we can't live in!

Whether we like it or not, the world has changed since the time of Christ. The message written to a church in Corinth in the latter half of the first century is not the message for the church in the United States at the dawn of the 21st century. Can we learn from their message? Absolutely! Does it contain truth? Undoubtedly! Is it the ultimate truth?

No!

God is the ultimate truth!

The Bible is God's letter to us, and it's all about Him. In its pages, God reveals to us portions of His nature so that we can know what we're pursuing. He shares with us select stories of His works in the world so we can look around us now and see His hands in every aspect of our lives. He tells us about His Son so we can encounter holiness. He tells us about His Spirit - the Spirit which now lives in all who accept Christ! The same Spirit that inspired the Scriptures! The same Spirit that healed the sick, raised the dead, and spread the Gospel throughout the Roman world!

He tells us about His Spirit because He gave it to us!

The Bible is what the Bible is. It's probably not going to change any time soon. That doesn't discount a word in it! It just means that we've got to start following the Voice that is dynamic, actively working, and speaks to us in our lives! Speaks to us in our settings! Speaks to us, as individuals, in our own hearts, minds, and souls!

The Holy Spirit is here! It is now! It is forever!

The Bible is a book. It can be destroyed.

The Holy Spirit is the eternal Spirit of God, placed inside every one of us when we take on Christ in baptism. Our souls become intertwined with the very Soul of God, leading us into further understanding of God's Word, yes, but also of God's Will.

The Bible contains God's Will in the grand sweeping arcs. And that's an absolutely indispensable guide for living the life we're called to live.

But when it comes down to the details? When it comes down to the hard decisions that just aren't covered in the Bible? When it comes down to seeing what God has in store for us, here, 2000 years removed from the final Amen of Revelation?

I think God is still talking to me. I've just got to be willing to listen.

And that's where next week's entry comes in (if I still have any readers by then).