Life As A Symphony

 

“God’s not here, we haven’t found Him anywhere.”

“I don’t have a relationship with Him, I can’t talk to Him.”

“The Bible is out of date, it’s just a list of old rules.”

These may sound statements from the non-believer or the new believer, but even the most committed believers have similar concerns:

“How could someone who loves everyone, condemn anyone to Hell?”

“God’s not just, look at all of the evil people who are successful.”

“Jesus may have lived, but he never faced temptation like THIS.”

My aim in this post is not to solve all of those struggles. I only want to point out that much of our struggle originates from our dedication to focusing on what God is not.

In his book Miracles, C.S. Lewis spells out a situation involving a limpet, which is a kind of aquatic snail that lives inside its shell and attaches itself to rocks. This particular limpet in the story gets the chance for a glimpse of Man, and reports back to his limpet buddies. Naturally, he will have to use many negatives, but those he reports back to will get some idea of what Man will look like.

Then along come the erudite limpets. These are the scholars of the limpet universe, who have no vision at all of what man is like. In their perennial cynicism, what they will take away from the limpet who has seen Man is solely the negatives.

As humans we take this same approach, focusing on the ideas that God is “infinite, immaterial, impassible, immutable, etc.”  This is where we get lost. One by one we strip away human attributes of God and disconnect Him more and more from ourselves, because He is, in fact, divine and beyond us. However, what we often fail to do in this process is replace the human attributes with divine attributes, and so we end up worshipping a non-entity. When we worship a non-entity, we determine that being a non-entity is the divine form of existence.

This is equivalent to a puzzle where the wrong pieces are taken out but not replaced. A song where instead of finding the right keys, we just close the piano altogether. A painting where instead of correcting the shading, we just throw the whole canvas in the trash. Being a non-entity is no way to live, and no way to make disciples. Our lives, and our vision of God, should both be beautiful symphonies where we take pieces and put them together for beautiful imagery.

After we strip everything away, what are the attributes that we can plug back into our work of art? If you ask A.W. Tozer in his book The Knowledge of The Holy, the divine attributes are “whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of himself.” Tozer further explains that being infinite, God must have attributes which we cannot possibly comprehend. So, the attributes we are looking for are what God has revealed and also what we can conceive about Him. “These answers He has provided in nature, in the Scriptures, and in the person of His Son.”

As believers our focus is placed on knowing these attributes; but what do we do with them? Back in Miracles, Lewis continues: “Imagination may help a little: but in the moral life, and (still more) in the devotional life we touch something concrete which will at once begin to correct the growing emptiness of our idea of God. One moment even of feeble contrition or blurred thankfulness will, at least in some degree, head us off from abyss of abstraction.” The key is to experience God’s attributes! “For Reason knows that she cannot work without materials. When it becomes clear that you cannot find out by reasoning whether the cat is in the linen-cupboard, it is Reason herself who whispers, ‘Go and look. This is not my job: it is a matter for the senses.’”

When as Christians we only rely on knowledge and study and reason for our image of God, we become the people lying curious in bed in the dark while God is the cat in the linen-cupboard. We fall short of knowing the full truth, and we wake up in the morning with only guesses to carry us forward. Our understanding of God is as incomplete as a drum solo from a novice musician.

Our routine is to gain knowledge of God’s attributes, but our duty is to experience those attributes.

That duty is made up of two things. First, we use those attributes to build our understanding of God. We build an image of Him that allows us to find Him in our lives and to relate to Him in our selves. In that image we find something to strive for each day, and something to anticipate in our eternity that helps us endure our hardest times.

Secondly, we make a symphony out of our lives when we experience those attributes and exemplify them. Day by day, moment by moment, we add a note to the song. Sometimes the song is full of low notes, low moments, and heavy and dramatic. Other times it is higher pitched, moments overflowing with joy and warmth. The tempo can be fast at certain points and slow in others. Our lives come together as a collection of moments full of God’s attributes, of notes of praise to Him.

Most songs, writings, and artwork are meant to tell a story. Don’t strip your story down to only what is not. Don’t limit your song to only the slow, monotone notes of knowledge. Take what God has revealed about Himself and take your experience with His attributes. Conduct your life as a symphony of moments that show His story to those around you and draws them to it like we are drawn to our own favorite pieces. The Bible is God’s main instrument for making disciples; but your song, your story, is your key tool to do the same.

Why The Coronavirus Hasn't Decimated My Worldview

The coronavirus has certainly brought on some heavy language. “Unprecedented” is one word that now gets used routinely. Among others, I do think it’s fair to say the virus has “gripped” the world. Limited to only doing certain activities, buying certain things, and communicating certain ways, we’re definitely within its grasp. However, what I’ve seen more of lately are people who seem to have had their worldviews absolutely shattered by the current state of affairs. “How could this happen!?” “This changes everything!” “We can never go back to normal!” They seem to be re-calibrating the entire direction of their lives. While there’s nothing wrong with self-check and we all share in this pain together and work together for resolution, I’d like to share with you why my worldview is generally unchanged.

History Holds No Surprises: One concept I’m seeing being discussed is the concept of “normal.” This discussion is coming from two different approaches. First, there are people who say that we can’t or won’t go back to normal. To me, this is stating the obvious. The evolution of humans may be up for debate but the evolution of societal technologies, communications, and practices is not. For thousands of years, change has been the only constant. The permanent changes may be small and may not be drastic, but there will be changes.

Second, there are people who say that we did not already exist in a “normal.” They say that greed, inequity, confusion, rage, hate, lack and other things are not normal. They act as if we currently exist in levels of greed, hatred, inequity, and depravity that the world has never seen. Unfortunately, the Bible and secular history show this to be factually inaccurate. These scenarios have played out en masse since the dawn of time. Current society is not morally distant from our historical counterparts, and we won’t be post-coronavirus.

No Illusion of Control: Thankfully, much of our society has had good history teachers. They taught us about the impact that one person can have and taught us to drive change in the world. However, this also drives our need for control, our insatiable desire to “fix” everything (now). So, when we are faced with an invisible enemy and have to accept that our role in driving change may be relatively minor, this concept is foreign to us.

In the Christian worldview this is the norm. For starters, our enemy has always been invisible and is always nearby. We are used to having to confront what we can’t see and may not understand. Secondly, in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), we know that our role is not always that of the leader. We know that while in some situations God may use us as the mouthpiece, in some we will only be a toe or an ear or a hair on the head. But we also know that he has numbered and counted each of those hairs.

Preparedness: People are transactional, results-oriented beings centered around if/then thinking. Our focus is that “if we just solve X, then we’ll have it right!” or “if I just get X, then I’ll be happy!” So, when major obstacles like the virus come along, they force us to question everything. “Never mind focusing on X, from now on society needs to focus on Y,” or “Ugh, now it’s going to take me this much longer to get to X.”

However, the Christian worldview remains steady, because it's never intended to void trouble. In fact, in John 16:33 Jesus guarantees “In this world you will have trouble.” Since our “X,” Christ, was never meant to void trouble, we expect it. We expect it at any time and in all shapes and sizes, and we prepare for it. In the middle of the storm we take shelter in the fortress and when the sun comes out, we build it up higher knowing that another storm is somewhere in the distance. And our “X”? As Jesus continues on: “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Our “X” isn’t something to be “solved.” Our “X” isn’t something to achieve that’s hindered by this latest obstacle. Our “X” is here and available in abundance; yesterday, today, and forever.

So why doesn’t the Christian worldview shatter when trouble like the coronavirus comes? It’s not because it ignores the trouble. It’s not because it’s selfishly focused and lacks empathy; quite the opposite is true.  It’s not because it’s given up on a solution; we're actually very well-suited to help. The worldview stays intact because it has been expecting trouble, and has been preparing for it all along.

Are We Ready For God?

Are we ready for God? I mean now. I don’t mean “are you ready to meet God?” I don’t mean to imply that the end is coming or that you’re on your deathbed. I don’t need to know if you’ve accepted Him as your Lord and Savior. What I mean is: are we ready for God? Can we handle and understand Him here, now, in the present, as He is and already exists?

A.W. Tozer writes that one of the first questions we ask in trying to understand God is “what is God like?” C.S. Lewis, in Miracles, provides some possibilities. “An impersonal God – well and good,” he says. This is a version of God that many of us put into use. Someone that we can reference at certain times, that we can blame things on, and that has no relational value whatsoever. This version of God is akin to things like “traffic” and “weather.” Good some days, bad some days, inconvenient often, and a vague reality that we don’t know or care to know more about the intricacies of.

Lewis carries on: “a subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads – better still.” Yes, this version of God IS better. For starters, it acknowledges God’s goodness. It becomes personal. It speaks to His creation and confirms Him as the foundation for fact and fiction, right and wrong.  It points to Him as something to be sought after. However, our ideas of Him in this version are still limited to what is in our own heads, and are also subject to our own motives and other distortions and what we want him to be. In this version God is no longer just generic “traffic” or “weather,” He is a teacher, a judge, something more defined and more personal.

One step further from Lewis: “A formless life force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap- best of all.” Now we’re cooking! This isn’t a God that just laid things out and disappeared, this is something we can use! Now we acknowledge God has power beyond our own thoughts, power to create, to heal, to change, to work miracles! And we have that power to use! Now God is a full-blown resource, available to do the things we want Him to.

“But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband- that is quite another matter.,” Lewis goes on. “There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?”

This is how Lewis concludes the list. THIS is the real, true, living God and He is so much more than we want Him to be. He is, and is in the middle of, everything, whether we want Him to be or not. This is also where Tozer answers His own question: “God is not like anything; that is, He is not exactly like anything or anybody. We learn by using what we already know as a bridge over which we pass to the unknown. It is not possible for the mind to crash suddenly past the familiar into the totally unfamiliar. “

This is where our conflict arises. Now, Tozer acknowledges that God has disclosed things about Himself that we can take as truth. We’ve seen these in His book, and in His Son. However, what he has disclosed is far from being the entire picture. Tozer’s analysis also points out that even Ezekiel, who saw Heaven opened up, was left without any words to describe what he saw, referring only to “likenesses.” He is beyond our understanding and beyond our comprehension. Whatever we think He is, he’s even bigger than that.

That is what leaves us woefully unprepared and in a constant search for Him. It is why Saint Augustine said “our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” In a world where we are challenged just to understand the Earth and the stars, the wind and the waves, our own children or pets…how can we understand that God created and is all of these and more?

Are we ready for that? Do we want to admit that God is everything and everywhere; near and far, past, present, and future? Lewis doesn’t seem to think we’ve ever wanted it to come to that. We are fearful of what that means for us and our own comprehension, our own achievement, and our own sin. It is, however, God’s true magnitude and the critical reality. We all lose when we degrade God to our level. It is why Tozer starts The Knowledge of the Holy with a chapter titled “Think Rightly About God” and closes the chapter with this challenge: “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him- and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place.”

In Order to Be Great, You Have to First Be Humble. In Order to Have Authority, You Must First Serve.

I was no good at Little League baseball. I only played a couple of years in elementary school and never again. As so many people do after their chances to have glory days or go pro have disappeared, about 10 years ago I started playing some recreational softball. In most cases, this has been in the form of church league softball.

Despite my inability to put the skills together in my younger years, I’ve always been blessed with the ability to run fast. I also learned to catch well and even have a nice baseball swing, something my dad taught me how to do in the basement of my childhood home. So, when I started playing softball, I was never particularly bad, but I had a lot less experience than some of the others.

I started out as the catcher on a team in the league’s B division. Over the years I got better and the team did too, moving the team up to the A division and me to play second base and right field. Then our better players started disappearing and I found myself in left field on a C division team for two years. Four years ago, a few players from our team moved the team to a new church. They made me the manager. Now, I play center field among a great group of new guys who won the A division championship this year.

This is just one small example among a group of past, present, and future situations that show that in order to be great you have to first be humble. In order to have authority, you must first serve. So many people spend their lives waiting for authority or fame or appreciation to just be handed to them, hoping the failure or attrition of others will get them what they want. Occasionally this works, but more often than not they find themselves passed over for someone who has made themselves the better choice.

In very few situations, most of them family-oriented, is authority given through existence alone. My opinion at work only carries any weight because I’ve been in my position for six years and gained a wealth of knowledge and experience. The captain of a U.S. nuclear submarine only gets there through years of serving in lesser positions, including a basic training boot camp where he barely has authority over himself. You hear more stories about CEOs that started out sweeping the shop floor than you do about someone getting a degree and appointed to the top. Everywhere you go in life, you find that you have to serve and be humble before you gain authority. It is how you gain knowledge, understanding, and empathy.

Examples of this fill the Bible. Jacob serves Laban for seven years in Genesis 29, in order to have Laban’s daughter Rachael as his wife. Laban deceived him, and he then served another seven years. By keeping his covenant and with Laban and the Lord, however, he would eventually have the nation of Israel named after him and its tribes named after his sons.

Joshua, in chapter 24 verse 15, famously said “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” So, we can see that Joshua continued to have authority and that verse 31 says “Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the Lord had done for Israel.” During those times Israel thrived and was prosperous, but by the beginning of Judges we find them serving other gods and the Lord can no longer save them.

In reality though, the entire Bible is about the greatest example of someone serving before being given authority, and that example rests in Jesus. He said frequently that the first will be last and the last will be first. From washing the apostles’ feet in John 13 to an entire life spent on Earth gaining knowledge, understanding, and empathy for the struggles, temptations, and sins he would die to erase, Jesus’ life sets the highest example. No one gains authority without first serving; not even Jesus.

Unless you’ve logged a considerable number of hours, you will probably not be flying the plane on your Christmas vacation. When you come back, it is unlikely that your manager will promote you if you don’t excel with the work you already have. God is not likely to give you more money, more responsibility, or more influence if you are not doing his will with what you already have. Serve to gain authority, humble yourself to be great.

Why Christians Have To Care What People Think of Them

“I don’t care what other people think.” “I don’t have to answer to anyone.” I hear these types of phrases often. Normally reserved for teenagers but used by many, these phrases are often meant to hide how much the person actually does care. They also hold an air of self-righteous arrogance. That being said, could there be evidence of intrapersonal strength and virtue in being apathetic to other people’s opinions?

Barely. It is true that frequently in the Bible, most explicitly in Romans 12:2, God tells us not to “conform to the pattern of this world.” There is virtue in spurning any of the trends or popular activities of this world that contradict God’s will. In that way, it makes sense for Christians to minimize the role that popular opinion or opposing views play in our lives. We do this to keep those around us from having a negative influence on our walk with Christ.

However, God calls us not to just be influenced but to be influencers. To be able to influence people, we have to have their respect. No one respects the Christian point of view when we don’t act like Christians. Additionally, no one can act in God’s ways if they don’t know how those ways apply to them. To be able to show them how, to be able to set a good example, we have to understand what’s important to them and why.

How much respect do I earn if I smother a co-worker with stories about how great my parents are, only two weeks after their mother has passed away? Does it do me much good to hype up a worship night to someone when they have no interest in music? How do I approach teaching a high schooler about God’s plan for their life and relationship if their parents are divorced? To earn people’s respect, bring them in, and influence them, we have to know their situations and what’s to important them.

More importantly, we have to take account of ourselves and check our own credibility. It does a high school student no good to talk to others about all-inclusive love and kindness if she is a jerk to everyone outside of her own group of friends. A man will struggle to convince other men of God’s intent for sex and relationships if he is always crass, perverted, demeaning, and unable to commit to anything. A lesson about the importance of treasures in Heaven versus the treasures of this world falls on deaf ears when it is given by someone who has driven themselves into debt for the biggest house and the newest car.

In order to be influencers we have to earn the respect of others. To be able to do that, we have to empathize with others and earn credibility for ourselves. That can only be done by paying attention to those around us and knowing their situations, traits, and values. We can only effectively do that by “caring what they think” and being ready to “answer to” them.