Category Archives: God

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Doesn’t God have to do what you say when you pray?

Prayer gets a bad rap. Consider:

  • “They couldn’t be bothered to get him the help he needed. Instead they swept it under the rug and ‘prayed.'” (an op-ed piece about Josh Duggar)
  • “It is easy to prove to yourself that God is imaginary. The evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs. #1: Try praying.” (homepage of the atheist website “God Is Imaginary”)
  • “Why don’t YOU try ‘not praying‘.  Just for a change, get off your knees and do something useful.” (a list of atheist responses to things Christians say)

So to hear these voices tell it, prayer is at best a misguided waste of time; at worst, a supplanter of real action and a proof that Christian teaching is false. Are they right?

This week I prayed for those in the path of Hurricane Patricia, which had been the strongest storm ever measured but which (thankfully) weakened markedly before making landfall. Some Christians would say my prayers helped, but even I am not sure of that. You see, even among Christians, there are widely divergent views on how to pray, why to pray, and what to expect when we pray. If you want a polarizing issue, look no further than prayer.

What prayer isn’t

If you believe that the Bible teaches we can make God do what we want by means of prayer, you are going to be disappointed. Millions— Christians and atheists alike— insist this is exactly what the Bible teaches, and point to a collection of about a half-dozen verses that (viewed in isolation) support the claim. The four most clear-cut are Matthew 18:19, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, and John 14:13-14, the “ask me anything!” verses. Reading the entire rest of the Bible, however, it pretty quickly becomes clear that there is more to it than that.

We know about the scriptures emphasizing the importance of faith,  motiverighteousness, OK— but what about the sincere believer asking from the heart? Even in their case, scripture often records that they don’t get their way. King David, the “man after God’s own heart“, pleads for the life of his child, but his child dies. Christ’s disciples attempt to cast out a demon, but cannot. Hebrews 11 gives a roll call of heroes of the faith, yet says, “Not one of them received what had been promised.” Even Jesus himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, asks to be delivered of the cross, and then is crucified.

What is going on here? Simply put: evil happens, and God has his own ideas about how to deal with it. The four most important words on prayer in the Bible are found in 1 John 5:14: “If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us (emphasis added).” Basically, a request that flatly contradicts God’s nature is a non-starter, but even in the case of the good ones, he may have other plans.

What prayer is

All of this raises valid questions: if the Bible’s overall message is that God does whatever he wants, then why include verses like, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it?” And if the only requests that God will grant are those already “according to his will” anyway, then why make us ask at all?

Ask me anything

To those who assert that the “ask me anything” verses, if true, can only describe a God who must fulfill any and every request, I would say: watch Ratatouille. In that movie, the preeminent critic, Ego, is like one of these scoffers, ridiculing chef Gusteau’s motto “Anyone can cook!” as though the only possible meaning is that anyone who reads a cookbook can become a world-class chef. In the climactic scene, however, Ego’s worldview is profoundly changed, and he reflects, “…but I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

It is just the same with the “ask me anything” verses. The prevailing focus of prayer in Jesus’ time was on blessing the Lord:

These blessings have God at their center. They contain no personal pronouns — focusing utterly on him, and not on the person praying. They are simply statements that praise God for his goodness.

Against this backdrop, the “ask me anything” verses fall into their proper place, not as counter-Biblical guarantees that God is our lap dog, but as heartfelt encouragements to break out of a too-narrow view: don’t just ask for what is “pious”, don’t just ask for what is “worthy”, it’s OK… ask me anything!

Everything your heart desiresSpeaking as a parent, my kids are not always inclined to good communication. As a teenager, my son in particular tended to assume we would say no, so he didn’t even ask, often to his great detriment and ours. We used to beg him to actually speak with us, rather than be limited by his imagination of us.  If a teenager can so badly misunderstand parents who daily occupy the same physical space, how much more is regular, unrestricted prayer a vital element in our understanding of God?

Why ask?

Next year, my daughter will be in middle school. Many of her friends have an allowance, but she doesn’t. We’d be happy to give her one— the granting of an allowance is “according to our will”— but she’s never asked. An allowance is a responsibility, and asking us will be one sign that she is ready to take that responsibility seriously. In the meantime, we’re perfectly happy to wait.

The Bible attributes this same mindset to God: “Until now you have asked for nothing in my name.” “You do not have because you do not ask God.” “Ask and ye shall receive.” I have heard these verses described as “God on a power trip”, “God wanting to humiliate us by making us bow and scrape”, “God playing mind games.” None of that makes any sense to me as a parent myself.

It is my belief that prayer is a vital and valuable part of the Christian life. If we don’t get everything we ask for, it doesn’t mean that “the Bible is wrong” or that “our faith isn’t strong enough”. It simply means that relationship with God is like any other relationship. Prayer is important because it is the cornerstone of that relationship. It is how we phone home to our father. It is transformative for us personally. It is so much more than us expecting God to do what we want.

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How to make peace with God after loss

Where is God when bad things happen? (Part 2 in a series.)

This week I read an article about losing faith; the problem was tragedy. After loss, there are inevitable questions: “How does this make sense? What ‘lesson’ is to be learned? What god would do this?” As a person of faith with my share of heartbreak, I can very much relate to those sentiments. There was a time when the circumstances of my life seemed so arbitrary, so capricious, so vindictive that I imagined God as an abusive father. I called him “the angry drunken God.”

On the other hand, speaking as someone who did ultimately make peace with God: there is a way through all that. There is an opposite shore. Christ found his way to it despite the evil that befell him; so can you and I.

Telling God off

The first thing to know is: God isn’t afraid of you. Let him have it. Tell him what you really think. He can handle it. As that losing-faith article put it, “Where is this fair and just God(s) I hear about? I just can’t bring myself to believe.”

Thoughts like this are common to all honest believers— the fact that we have them doesn’t somehow make us “unacceptable to God”. For me, the light went on one day, in the midst of my deepest God-anger, when I was flipping through Psalms and my eye settled on the this:

We have heard it with our ears, O God;
    our ancestors have told us
what you did in their days,
    in days long ago

But now you have rejected and humbled us…
You gave us up to be devoured like sheep…
You sold your people for a pittance,
    gaining nothing from their sale…
I live in disgrace all day long.

That’s from Psalm 44; it goes on and on like that. If you’re angry at God, I really recommend shouting the whole thing aloud at him; it’s very cathartic. But the point is, it’s all a 1000 B.C. way of saying “Where is this fair and just God I hear about?” It’s the same stuff that we’re dealing with today. And he got into the Bible with that action! Bottom line: God isn’t going to smite us if we wanna get real.

Not like you’ve heard

Next, don’t confuse the trivial, bland, insipid things that people say about God for what God says about himself. A lot of so-called Christians are just out-and-out wrong about Christianity. The commonly expressed notions that “you get what you deserve” or “bad things won’t happen to good people”—or perhaps worst of all, that “God won’t give you more than you can handle”— may be based on good principles, but as hard-and-fast rules, they are patently unbiblical.

The very symbol of our faith— a cross— is an instrument of torture, reminding us that the worst thing happened to the best person. That wasn’t fair. The Bible is chock-a-block with stories about people “getting more than they could handle”: otherwise, what would they need God for? In fact, throughout scripture, Christ repeatedly makes promises along the lines that “in this world you will have trouble.”

It’s not just a New Testament idea. Going back to Ecclesiastes, Solomon says over and over that what happens in this world is meaningless. It’s a fallen world: it isn’t going to be fair, it isn’t going to be just, it isn’t always intended to “teach us something”— this place is messed up because of sin and bad stuff happens here. Sometimes it’s going to happen to us.

What use is God?

So, what is the use of God if he isn’t going to keep bad things from happening to us? First, worth remembering that if God is anything like the Bible describes, then his entity isn’t really tied to his usefulness. Many natural phenomena occur without deference to our opinions of them; it is the same with God.

That said, God does make himself “useful”. As with Jesus’ crucifixion, the bad things that happen are not the end of the story. Evil happens, but God isn’t finished. Over 8 years ago, we experienced the tragedy of a stillbirth (the first of six perinatal losses). In many ways, it felt like a nightmare we couldn’t wake up from, but even then, another part of us felt like our whole lives, we’d been comfortably asleep, and had only just woken up. A lot of people in this world are suffering. A lot of good can be done for those people, a lot of kindness can be shown to them, and after loss, we have now been put in a position to be part of that. Before, we didn’t even have eyes to see them.

Again, some people trivialize this, like, “God needed you to be more compassionate; that’s why he killed your baby.” I just think that is the babbling of someone who’s never been through it, expressing their own need for an illusory feeling of safety. The person who says something like that is really just saying, “Meaningless evil terrifies me; here is the veneer of order that spares me from facing those fears.”

Whereas, the real core of the biblical message— the real “good news” that you hear so much about— is that we can live in a world like that and not have to be afraid. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.” “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” This is what the Bible is about and has always been about. It is the story of a loving God, a world of rampant evil, and the untiring efforts of the one to be reconciled to the other. Those who say otherwise are simply missing the point.

Read the other postings of this series!
Part 1: Mass shooting, evil, and the end of the story
Part 3: “But isn’t it all God’s fault…?

Deeper prayer life

My so-called prayer life

I’ll say it right up front: this is a posting for people who like prayer. I know of lot of us scoff at prayer, you’re all very welcome here, I would love to talk about that sometime soon, but not today.

I like prayer but unfortunately (like many of us), I am not particularly good at it. There have been moments— those prayers of earnest seeking when God is suddenly so present for one tiny instant, and then the wave crests and it all ebbs away. Or those vindictive moments when I remember to turn to God, then am shocked to discover I have found my way to love for my enemies. Those are the times when the power of prayer is like an electric force coursing through my body.

Then there are the other times… When my mind keeps getting distracted by shiny things. When I know I promised to pray for someone but can’t remember who. When I feel like a petulant child with my bullet-stream of requests, when I want to pray better but can’t think how, when I wander from topic to topic or (being honest) fall asleep.

How can we pray better? How can we have more of the immediate, intimate prayer life we want? Partly the answers must be found individually. The Christian walk is a relationship, and as there is no single secret to a happy marriage, there is no single secret to an intimate prayer life. However, there are some common threads, and I would like to highlight two that have proven meaningful for me, which are: space and intention.

Space

We live in a busy time. Everything is crammed in; nothing receives the attention it deserves. As 2013 New York Times editorial rather poignantly put it, “Being a Working Mother Means Always Having to Say You’re Sorry.” Little wonder, then, that our prayer times are crammed in as well. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 does instruct us to “pray without ceasing,” but again, the analogy to marriage is a good one: simple small acts of love are wonderful, but they don’t replace the periodic date night. Any healthy relationship requires genuine investment.

This is not to say that neglected prayer time is one more thing to feel guilty about. Guilt may have its place, but it’s not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. A better way to think of it is that, when we crave deeper intimacy with God, a way is available to us. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” says Christ. When that thirst for God becomes greater than the other needs that press in upon us from every side, he is there to be found.

As a practical note, one way to carve out space in our lives is with a clear start and finish. Small prayer-time rituals can have enormous value: ring a bell, light a candle, roll out a prayer mat… any such practice can reduce the muddy splashing of the everyday onto our sacred space/time.

Intention

Prayer needs to have the right focus, which is surprisingly easy to forget. During my flickers of transcendent prayer, the clearest memory is what I felt. So, the attempt to recreate those feelings is one very natural, but very wrong, approach to prayer. Because it is such an easy mistake, many Christian authors have written about it.

Way back in 1875, Hannah Whitall Smith wrote, “The common thought is, life is to be lived in the emotions. As they are satisfactory or otherwise, the soul rests or is troubled.” More recently, Bill Bright described the Christian experience as a train. “The caboose we will call ‘feelings,'” he writes, “It would be ridiculous to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way you, as a Christian, should never depend on feelings or seek after an emotional experience.”

Much of the core gospel message is concerned with love, which we think of as an emotion, but in scripture, “love” tends to be more of an action verb: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,” “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” “Let us show love, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service.”

Christian love, by definition, is other-focused rather than self-focused. The richest prayer life becomes available to us when create real space and time in our lives for it, and when our focus is on God, his work in the world, and our place within that.

 

Leave a comment! What practices help you to have a deeper and more transformative prayer life? 

 

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God, condemnation, and the “unrepentant sinner”

We all have sin. Scripture says so. Christians say so; even conservative Christians say so. Why, then, is there so much talk nowadays about how people are “in sin” and therefore condemned to God’s judgment? Do we have to quit our “sin” in order to be Christians? Do we have to quit our “sin” in order to be saved?

What is an unrepentant sinner?

A major idea of modern Christianity in America, non-controversial in even the most conservative circles, is that “ex-sinners” are welcome. “Ex-sinners” are non-problematic for us; many of us think of ourselves as “ex-sinners”, and rightfully include our deliverance from sin as a cornerstone of our personal testimony. “All have sinned” is thus held to be a thing primarily of our personal pasts, and our term for people who meet this test is “repentant sinner.”

What, then, of the “unrepentant sinner”, whose “sin” is still acknowledged to be in the present? People quote verses like “wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of heaven” to show that his choices are: (1) to desist from a certain list of sins (see below) or (2) be condemned to eternal hell. But then, in effect, his salvation stems from his behavior and we are back under the law; Christ did not come simply to change up the line of reasoning by which sinners are condemned.

If we only welcome “ex-sinners”, then another way of phrasing our message to the world is: “Go clean up your act, and then you are invited to join us,” or at least, “You may join us provisionally so long as you clean up your act.” The line of reasoning is that we must protect ourselves from the unrepentant sinner (often quoting the warning of 1 Corinthians 5:11). But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Whereas we, in our imposition of prerequisites and conditionals, are like the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, turning away the “unrespectables” to protect their program, only to find in the end that, “We were intolerant. How could we guess that all those fears were to prove groundless? How could we know that thousands of these sometimes frightening people were to make astonishing recoveries and become our greatest workers?”

In the parable of the sowerone major point lost on our non-agricultural generation is the shocking wastefulness; Christ as the sower makes no distinctions about where he spends himself. He scatters as liberally to the poor soil and the thorn bushes as to the good. If he made no such distinctions with his grace, if he made no such judgments about who is worthy to receive his largess, then why should we make such distinctions? I think Christ’s point is that you and I, as we are out there sowing, have no idea where is the good soil and where the bad. Sometimes the most radiant Christians (e.g. Paul) come from the most surprising and least worthy places (e.g. Paul). Christ himself said, “Whoever is forgiven much will love much.”

“Acceptable” sin

In our contemporary Christian culture, we have come around to a conventional wisdom that breaks down “sins” into three categories:

  1. Acceptable: Those that can be freely practiced without reflection, hesitation or misgiving. These include eating unclean food, breaking the sabbath, and (increasingly) remarriage after divorce.
  2. Borderline: Those that can be practiced now and again, so long as it is due to “weakness” and you feel shame (aka “repentance”) about it. This covers pretty much the whole range from alcoholism to sexual sin.
  3. Horrifying: Those that are so egregious they must not be practiced, ever. This category is largely theoretical, used as a debating tactic when shock value is needed; it’s mainly just murder and bestiality.

It is adherence to this conventional wisdom that fuels our entire modern culture war. People whose “sins” fall into the “acceptable” category are readily welcomed and embraced by the church, whereas those who are relegated to “borderline” status are offered a false correlation: between being acceptable to Christians and living in constant shame.

Here is the problem: it’s all a cultural construct. Even conservative churches now readily take in those who would have caused a great scandal just a generation or two ago. Rightly so. The weight of scripture is overwhelmingly against the drawing of niceties between different kinds of sin. James says “Whoever obeys the whole law yet breaks it at just one point is guilty of breaking it all.” Paul makes a similar point when talking about circumcision. And Christ himself equates one of our “horrifying” sins (murder) with words spoken in anger and contempt, a practice so common among contemporary Christians that it is seen as totally “acceptable” (if not “encouraged”!)

Christ’s plucking grain on the sabbath, Peter’s vision of eating forbidden food, Paul’s railing against the need for circumcision: these are not meant to be line-item deletions of three specific legal requirements, leaving the rest of the law in full force. They must be read as they would have seemed to the original audience, as wild and revolutionary, sweeping and scandalous, not chipping away at the cornices of the law, but swinging at the foundation stones with a pickaxe.  If we are to tolerate unrepentance towards the “acceptable” sins, then we ourselves are the transgressors when we refuse equally free welcome, grace and acceptance to all.

Errors of judgment and license

Unfortunately, many instinctively revolt against this line of reasoning because it is open to abuse. Always has been. That doesn’t make the theology wrong. Paul was God’s pioneer for grace-instead-of-law, and he was constantly having to defend it against the legalists on his right and the licentious on his left. Sin still has the power to destroy, but so does the knee-jerk, unthinking, reflexive application of the law.

As brothers and sisters, we are not to stand idly by when we witness destructive sin at work in a person’s life. Simple human mercy demands that much, to say nothing of scripture’s commands that we care for each other and bear one another’s burdens. But we must remember: there is more to knowing what needs to change in a person’s life than simply knowing whether or not Hebrew law is being obeyed. It is the blanket application of law— without love, without reflection, without relationship— that cannot survive in the heart of the true Christian.

Related Links

What is sin? It’s not that simple.

Resisting the unfairness of God

Learning to enjoy the massive unfairness of God

The gospel message has a problem. Always has had. Here it is: a lot of the very people who embrace it most whole-heartedly seem like they don’t really like it.

At its core, the Christian message— the “good news”— is intended for all of life’s “outsiders”: you are welcome too! So how have we gotten into the “us” vs. “them” mindset— insiders vs. outsiders— so often encountered in relations between Christians and non-Christians today? One factor, found in scripture, is that some believers can find themselves offended by the “unworthiness” of those still “in sin”— the unfairness of claiming that God’s love is for “them” as much as “us”.

Biblical Examples

Believers have never liked the breadth of God’s grace; it goes way back before Christ. Jonah is a classic example. Forget  the whale; the real story is about the prophet called to preach to people he considers undeserving. He would literally rather be thrown in the ocean to drown. Spoiler alert: when the whole city of Nineveh finally turns to God as a result of his preaching, Jonah is furious at God for showing mercy toward “them”.

Several of Christ’s parables address the same point:

  • In the prodigal son, one of the bible’s great portraits of redemption, an inescapable feature is the anger of the righteous elder brother.
  • In the vineyard laborers, the hard-working laborers grumble against the master for over-kindness; he responds, “Do you begrudge my generosity?”
Alive & Well Today

A recent study showed that atheists are nearly the least trusted group in America, ahead of only convicted criminals. Discussing the article on reddit, many posters used scripture to vociferously defend that scornful attitude. The only scripture I could think of, as I read their harsh, condemning remarks, was Romans 2:1: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. At whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you do the very same things.”

In today’s culture wars, so much of our focus seems to be on detachment. If we can demonstrate from scripture that someone else’s behavior qualifies as a “sin”, we feel we have justified any possible range of responses without need for further reflection. But viewed in the lights of scripture, our responses may be more troubling to God— more “sinful”— than the sin that provided the justification in the first place.

If you see anyone as “enemies of Christ”, go among them, befriend them, do good to them. That’s what Jesus did for us when we were all his enemies.

We may quote Psalm 14:1 to justify our condemnation of an atheist, but can’t we, surely, keep reading for just two verses more to see that our own shortcomings are every bit as offensive? “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man… there is none who does good, not even one.” You would have to change the scripture if you wanted it to read as an indictment of atheists only. We quote scripture to call another of God’s creatures “a fool”, but in so doing, in the eyes of God, we have literally used a word, and committed an act, that Christ said was no better than murder.

A Christlike Response

It is impossible to imagine that we are more aware of, or troubled by, the world’s sin than was Christ himself. So why do we feel we can justify responses so much more stringent than his? Christ’s separation from sin manifested in his own personal obedience, not in aloofness from others less pure. It was an article of faith among First Century pharisees that intermingling with sinners was tantamount to approval of their sin and rejection of God’s law. Christ’s free intermingling with “sinners” on non-hostile terms was consistently seen by the pharisees as scandalous (see here and here and here and here, for example). Why, then, does our behavior towards the sinful of our own day resemble their attitude so much more strongly than his?

In response to the problem of error and doubt and malice, Christ came near. Into a world where “none does good, not even one,” Christ boldly came and lived and called himself by the name “son of man”. To the heavenly ear, I imagine that sounded as discordant as a pastor unapologetically proclaiming himself as “son of harlots” or “son of drug-dealers”. The words of scripture abound with tenderness for those we reject as “lost” or “fallen” or “disgraced”: “feed my lambs“, “restore them gently“, “repent and live!

If you see anyone as “enemies of Christ”, go among them, befriend them, do good to them. That’s what Jesus did for us when we were all his enemies.

How Jesus is like nonfat milk

3 Ways Jesus is like nonfat milk

Milk is a starting place.
Milk polarizes.
Milk explains why Jesus had to die.

I don’t have to tell you that when it comes to milk, people have strong preferences. In no other area of life will 1% of butterfat raise such ardent passions. Yet in so many ways, this familiar white beverage is like Our Savior. Milk is a starting place. Milk polarizes. Milk even explains why Jesus had to die…

Milk is a starting place

We are born, I believe, with a desire to seek God. Even many atheists will agree with this, though they offer it to explain why “people had to invent God”, whereas I believe it falls into the same category as all our other in-born desires like food and water and sleep— in no other area is our desire for something held out as evidence that it doesn’t actually exist.

Yet, despite our desire for God, to us in our natural state, he is not particularly accessible. People are as often offended by God’s purity and God’s power as they are attracted by it. Especially in the 21st century America, these qualities of God seem opposed to values like openness and democracy. It runs contrary to our DNA nowadays to simply trust the powers that be to have our best interests at heart (as God has).

Into a world like this, Jesus comes to render God the father into an accessible human shape. In my “faith” conversations with non-believers, they often want to start by talking about objections: “How could God…” and “Why should God…”  and “Why doesn’t God just…” and so on. These are all valid questions and I think that all believers wrestle with them, but they don’t make a very good starting place.

Christ has so much to teach, but in several places, the bible encourages us to start with our times tables before we move on to wrestle with algebra and trig. “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it,” says 1 Corinthians 3:2, and 1 Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” Far from insult or condescension, these passages simply reflect the fundamental truth that learning about the deep things of God is like any other area of learning: you have to start at the beginning if you are to make any sense of it.

Milk polarizes

We have it right in my own family: to my brother-in-law, whole milk is a rich, creamy treat, while nonfat is flavorless blue water. To me, nonfat is clean and refreshing, while whole is gloppy and clogging.

Jesus has a similar polarizing quality. The apostle Paul says, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16) He’s talking about the incense burned in the parade when Roman armies returned in triumph, marching captives before them toward execution. To the Romans, the incense meant victory and life, but to the captives, it was the stench of their utter destruction. All this even though the smell itself never changes.

Milk explains why Jesus had to die

As I mentioned, I like nonfat milk on my cereal. Once, my family went camping, and the only milk anyone brought was whole. “Well,” they explained, “you can just add water to the whole milk.” I countered, “Then I’ll just have watery whole milk!” You see, the problem is, I don’t like the butterfat, and whole milk still has it no matter how much water you add.

I am sometimes asked, why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Some have even claimed that Christ’s death on the cross is evidence that God is cruel and vindictive. By this line of reasoning, the sins we commit should be balanced against the good things we do, and if the good outweighs the bad, then God should be satisfied.

The problem is, this is just like trying to turn whole milk into nonfat by adding water. If you do, it will just give you an unappetizing frankenbeverage. You can never turn one into the other by adding something (like water); what is needed— the only real solution— is to take something away.

You may have heard the joke that you’ll never find a perfect church, and even if you do, you’ll mess it up when you get there. God’s problem with having the likes of us with him in heaven is, we’d do the same thing. Heaven is characterized by what it has, but also by what it has not: “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

When Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, he accomplished that. He turned something unappetizing to God, clogged by gloppy sin, into something delightful and refreshing.

God fixing our world

The 3 best options for God fixing our world (hint: none of them will work)

I recently had a discussion with some non-believer friends about the question of faith, and the major point under discussion was basically, “What is God’s problem?” That is to say, if God exists, why all the mystery, and why require us to have “faith”, which scripture defines as “being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1)? Think of all the strife and division and error that could be eliminated if God would just come down and reveal himself… it would be God fixing our world.

As a bible-believing Christian, it got me thinking. What could God do? That is, if God were going to “come down and reveal himself”, what are his options? In broad terms, he could either do a one-time thing or an on-going thing.

If God were going to “come down and reveal himself”, what are his options?

But in the end, a one-time thing would inevitably fall into the same category as all the revelations already recorded in the bible– it would become a matter of history and, over the course of centuries or millennia, would become debatable. All the historical documents that attest to it would become “religious texts”, and therefore to some people, unreliable, especially if (for convenience), later publishers began adding them into the same volume as our existing collection of “religious texts”, which is known as the bible.

On the other hand, if God did an on-going thing, then that would quickly come to be viewed as part of our universe’s natural operation. Christians often cite the many seemingly miraculous aspects of the universe as it is, but all of them have been described and natural laws have been created to model them, and therefore they are all part of nature. If you fundamentally reject the possibility that God created nature, then anything on-going he does is not to his glory, but rather to the glory of the natural universe.

There is one final possibility, which is that he could live in on-going first-person relationship with humanity, like in the Garden of Eden, but according to the bible, that’s been tried and it didn’t work out. Even under those circumstance, people just couldn’t buy that God really is who he says he is and really means what he says.

This was a problem back in Jesus’ time too, by the way. Luke 16:27-31 records a parable he told that addresses this exact point. To me, the price of humanity having been created with some measure of free will is that, no matter what God does, it will always be a matter of debate. There can never be a “clear” revelation that puts an end to it.