Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Living in the Not Yet

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Not YetThere are many places in Scripture where the phrase “how long, oh Lord” is expressed. This phrase exhibits a longing for change and protection.

As I listen to news of the day I connect with this sentiment. There is much in our world that appears out of control and evil seems to win the day too often. My thoughts echo the words in Habakkuk 1:3-4, where he asks God,

“Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”

Reading further, I am reminded that God remains in control and I can leave it in His hands. I long for the day when Jesus reigns and this mess will be cleaned up. Yet, somehow, I must learn to be content living in the not-yet.

I am learning (slowly) to hear God’s prompting as to what I am to be about and be content to let the rest go. I’m also learning to bring the stuff I cannot change to God in prayer knowing that he cares about it and will bring his plan into reality.

The core question is “do I trust that God loves me and is concerned about me?” If the answer is yes, then I will stand on that and rest.

Dorothy Sayers on the Incarnation

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Dorothy SayersI’m re-reading Dorothy Sayers’ book Creed or Chaos? and have to share another quote with you:

“It is not true at all that dogma is ‘hopelessly irrelevant’ to the life and thought of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration as though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so. The central dogma of the Incarnation is that by which relevance stands or falls. If Christ was only man, then He is entirely irrelevant to any thought about God; if He is only God, then He is entirely irrelevant to any experience of human life. It is, in the strictest sense, necessary to the salvation of relevance that a man should believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unless he believes rightly, there is not the faintest reason why he should believe at all. And in that case, it is wholly irrelevant to chatter about ‘Christian principles.’”

1 Corinthians 1:23 (ESV)

23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

Death is Dead

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No DeathDeuteronomy 14:1b-2

You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

As a child of God, death is no longer an enemy to be feared. As one in a covenant relationship with God, I should have a new and different perspective on death than those who do not know God.

The new perspective is that death is not an end but a transition from one existence to a better one.

In their role as a light to the nations, the Israelites were not to participate in the hopeless displays for the dead that the surrounding nations practiced. Israel was supposed to be a beacon of hope to those who did not know God, a beacon that God would use to draw people to himself.  Therefore, the Israelites were not allowed to disfigure themselves to honor the dead.

While most of us are not in immediate peril of experiencing death, we do face difficulties of varying degrees. As believers, we should look at difficult times in a different perspective than those who do not know God. The proper response to the fear of death should be instructive as to how to respond to less threatening difficulties. If death is not to be feared, why fear difficult times?

Yet, I do find myself gravitating toward fear. The antidote to fear is to refocus on the blessings I have in Christ that no political, economic or physical turmoil can take away. I am reminded of Peter’s prayer on the lake, “Lord save me . . . ” Or as the writer of Hebrews prescribes, “Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus . . . “

A Thought from Saint Augustine

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St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo

In the Confessions, Saint Augustine describes a depraved soul as “falling away from security in you to destruction in itself.”

I like the way that Augustine puts this. When I make moral choices, I am choosing between God or self, light or darkness, building or destruction. There is no middle ground.

Yet there is hope. The first source of hope is found in Romans 8:1 – there is no condemnation for me if I am in Christ.

The second source of hope is that God can take my half-hearted attempts at obedience and use them for His purpose and His glory. Later on in Romans 8, Paul says, “all things work together for good.” In this context, I take the word good to mean good from God’s perspective, which too often is different than mine.

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