My god is too small

Posted on February 1, 2014 Written by Mark McIntyre 4 Comments

My god is too small.

I do not have a theological problem. I have no trouble affirming the God of the Bible, especially as revealed in Jesus.

I do not struggle to assent to an infinite, all powerful God; this is not an intellectual problem.

My problem is a belief problem. What I truly believe is indicated by my actions and when I observe my behavior, I must confess that my god is too small.

My god is too small when:

I look to others to define who I am and how I am doing
I am overwhelmed by my circumstances
I feel that no-one understands me
I get bogged down in guilt
I let my failures define who I am

On the flip side, Scripture reveals the character of God and speaks to all of these issues. For example:

Psalm 139 tells me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that I am not a mistake. God determines who I am and how I am doing (Psalm 139:14).
Jesus promises to be with me (Matthew 28:20) and is in control of my circumstances.
Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6) and understands me
In Jesus I am under no condemnation (Romans 8:1)
Scripture presents every giant of the faith as having experienced failure. Their failures did not define them or keep them from being used by God.

If I truly believe these things, I will act upon them. When I am caught in the first list, it is evidence that I am not believing in the God of the Bible. At that point, the god in which I believe is too small.

Thankfully, I can echo the prayer recorded in Mark 9:24, “I believe; help my unbelief!” A prayer from which I have taken much comfort over the years.

What is that to you? – A lesson from C. S. Lewis

Posted on July 16, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

The C. S. Lewis Quote

Walter Hooper writes this anecdote in his introduction to The Weight of Glory about an interaction he had with C. S. Lewis:

‘I told Lewis that I was tempted – very strongly tempted – to tell Our Lord that I thought it monstrously unfair that He should allow the naughty old atheist to seemingly go on forever and yet let Lewis, who was only sixty-four, come so close to the point of death. ‘Mind you,’ I said, observing Lewis’s face cloud over, ‘I haven’t actually said it in my prayers, but I’ve come pretty close.’
And what do you think our Lord would say to that?’ Lewis said with a discouraging look.
‘What?’
‘What is that to you!’
Anyone who had read John 21:22 – Our Lord’s rebuke to St. Peter – will recognise Lewis’ application of it in this instance.

Mr. Hooper goes on to write that Lewis would do what he could to improve a situation but trust the outcome to God. Once he had trusted it to God, Lewis would not give it another thought. In other words, Lewis had a good sense of boundaries and where his responsibility was at an end.

The Lesson

This is a lesson that I struggle to learn. Too often I stew about things over which I have no control. Sometimes it goes beyond stewing and I try to affect change in a situation where my input is not required or wanted. I should have already learned this lesson because it always goes badly when I go beyond the boundary.

At it’s core, my inability to know my boundaries stems from a lack of faith in God. I lack faith either because I distrust God’s goodness or I doubt his desire to make this situation right. When I worry about thongs which are beyond my control I show the weakness of my faith.

“What is that to you?” is the correct question to ask.

If God allows a bad situation that is beyond my ability to fix, what is that to me? If someone else gets a reward or position that he did not deserve, what is that to me? If a candidate for whom I did not vote gets into office, what is that to me? If someone says something about me that is not true, what is that to me?

Paul tells us in Philippians 1:6 that God will complete what he has started. We also learn from Paul’s experience of the thorn in the flesh that God uses circumstances to teach us what we need to learn to progress in holiness.

Do I really trust God or do I merely pay him lip service? When I try to affect change outside of my God given sphere of responsibility, then I prove that I am doing the latter.

Numbering our days: a reflection on Psalm 90

Posted on July 14, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

Beyond a temporal understanding

I have been reading through the Psalms. Recently I came to Psalm 90 where it says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) This is a verse that has often been quoted, usually in the sense of expressing urgency to get busy in doing work for the Kingdom of God. In this understanding, the emphasis is on the fleeting nature of time and how we have, on average, some 70 years to accomplish things for God before life comes to an end.

If this is the correct understanding of this verse, wisdom would dictate that we discover our calling and work hard at accomplishing the most in the time we have allotted. Ephesians 5:15-16 would seem to support this understanding when Paul writes:

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

I have even heard it said that we should keep a running countdown of the days until our 70^th birthday so that we can be aware of how much time we have left to work for the Kingdom. While the countdown is not a bad idea, I think that it does not capture the whole point of the prayer in the context of the Psalm. Awareness of the brevity of our days has benefit, but the focus should not be on what we plan on accomplishing but upon what God wants to accomplish through us.

Obedience is the key

Moving a few verses back in the Psalm, it can be seen that the context of the prayer is God’s judgment against Israel for their rebellion. In verse 8 it says, “You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.” In other words we are to live with the understanding that we are under the scrutiny of God and as a result, we must have an understanding of our finite nature and respond to God properly. It is not our temporal awareness that is in question, but our ability to obey.

In reading the rest of the Psalm I have a sense that some of the anger at the nation of Israel was due to presumption on their part. They presumed upon God’s tolerance and as a result they reaped God’s anger. Can we not do the same? We can be busy doing all sorts of things and convince ourselves that we are doing it for God. Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees for this type of hypocrisy. The question is not whether we are busy, the question is are we being responsive to God?

On the basis of this, I see Psalm 90:12 as a request to help us understand our finiteness rather than an encouragement to pack in as much in our 70 years as possible. The lesson we learn from Matthew 7:21-23 is that activity is not the cause for reward, relationship with Jesus Christ is. This prayer is not a call to busyness or activity, it is a call to submission to God.

It is God’s plan

I do not for a minute buy into the argument that there is something that God needs me to do and I am the only one to do it. Yes, God allows me to participate in the accomplishment of his will but my rebellion or incompetence cannot derail his plan. I do not have to race the clock to get something accomplished for God. This is freeing if I allow it to be.

What I do need to do is bring my finite understanding to God and seek him for what I should be about today. Do we really believe Jesus when he said take not thought for tomorrow? I don’t need to plan out what I need to accomplish for God, I need to do what he has asked me to do today. God will take care of the years moving forward if I simply submit each day to him.

You reap what you sow – values and the criminal element

Posted on July 12, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

This post is not about politics. It involves a politician who made an appeal to the values of the gangs in his city. The philosophy behind the statements is in need of comment.

Rahm Emanuel recently made statements regarding the gang violence in the city in which he serves as mayor. In those statements, he suggested to the gang members that they should “take your stuff away to the alley.” The New York Post quotes Emanuel as saying, “It’s not about the crime. It’s about values,” in response to the recent high-profile gang shooting of a 7-year-old girl killed in the crossfire as she sold candy outside her home.

For me, these statements are a classic example of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:22, “Professing to be wise, they became fools.”

They are criminals

First, Mr. Emanuel is addressing criminals. The very nature of a criminal is that he does not recognize the boundaries that God or society have put in place to maintain an orderly civilization. On what basis does he appeal to the gangs to change their behavior? If they recognized the authority of the police and the government, they would not be criminals and would not be killing people. To ask them to have values is almost as silly as asking my dog to become a bunny or a giraffe. Without a change in their hearts and minds to the point where they recognize a higher authority, no appeal to them will be effective.

Criminals do not share our values

Secondly, on what basis should the gang member value one life over another? Why should the gangster be concerned about the little girl? I’m agreement that he should be concerned about her, but considering that he shows no aversion to shooting people and selling drugs or whatever else his gang does, it does not seem likely that when the opportunity comes to strike at his enemy, rational evaluation will prevent him from pulling the trigger.

Society has contributed to the problem

Our country is becoming increasingly atheistic, to the point that anyone who dares teach transcendent values to children is considered dangerous or kooky. We teach kids in school that they are the product of random mutations. We teach them that the strong will outlive the weak and then we get upset when they put that philosophy into practice.

Similarly, we send the best and the brightest to Ivy League schools where they are taught that there are no objective moral standards. They are taught that morality cannot be legislated; they are free to live as they want with no restrictions. Yet when they become executives and live out this philosophy in the board room, we put them in jail for circumventing the financial regulations.

The party affiliation of Rahm Emanuel has nothing to do with this gaffe. The philosophy and the spirit of our age that he has knowingly or unknowingly ingested have everything to do with it. The idea that children should be free to choose their own belief system is now showing itself to be a delusion at best and a nightmare at worst. It is not a question of whether children will be indoctrinated; it is a question of what will be included in that indoctrination.

We are reaping what we have sown

We are reaping the fruit we planted when we threw off the moral categories on which the country was founded. The apple of freedom that looked so appealing when we first saw it has been found to be full of worms.