I think that God is quite the romantic. When I say “romantic”, what do I mean? I was reflecting this morning on Who He is and how He communicates Himself to us and I want to throw something out to think on. Romance is ultimately about being known and loved. This is an obvious statement, but I want to go a further with it.
How does God communicate Himself to us? When we read the Old Testament, specifically the Law, we see lists of rules and principles to live by. Is this the primary thing that God is after? “Here is how you live.” “This is what you do.” I think not. As I have suggested before, I think the principles exist to reveal the Person. What God is ultimately after is not for us to follow a set of principles, but to love the Person—Him. What He desires is for us to look at those principles and understand Him. What does Jeremiah say, “Let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows me.” (9:24) Knowledge is the “what,” understanding is the “why”.
Let us go further. Why creation? Why did God create us to begin with? What was the purpose of it all? What does human love, in its imperfection, reveal to us? Love, in its nature, is not singular, it is plural. It requires, demands, another. And in its plurality, it grows and expands. Why do couples have children? Certainly we can suggest instinct as part of the reason, but I think there is a much deeper reason for this. There is a desire to share the love with more than just the two of them. Love in its nature is not only plural, but creative. Perhaps we can say that creation was an explosion of love between the Trinity. It was the ultimate “big bang”. I picture this in the words of God when He creates man—“Let us make man in Our image.” Feel the joy and love of God in this statement. I picture the Trinity, with a love we can only begin to imagine, being moved so deeply with one another, that creation happened. And it only grew in intensity—we move from water to fish to birds to land animals to man. Love grows in its creativity of expression.
What is something we can learn about His creation of man and woman? Notice the different ways we communicate, not only between the genders, but even in the ways we chose to communicate to others. Sometimes we are very verbal and explicit about what we want; other times we want the other person to take what is known about us and “figure it out.” Don’t we see this in how God communicates Himself to us? In some passages we find that he is very straight-forward; in others we are left to delve deeper in His character. What He wants is the same thing that He is—for us to plumb the depths of Who He is and know Him. The Psalmist writes about God’s knowledge of us—and in His heart, He wants us to know Him too.
I have suggested above that romance is about being known. What do I mean by this? Romance is romantic because the individual takes what is known about the beloved and takes action based on this understanding. The things that speak to the heart in the deepest of ways speak to it in one way because we identify with those things—it is who we are. While there is much more to romance than being known and loved, I think a big part of it is being known—because that speaks to the heart.
I do not think Christianity is about going to heaven, avoiding hell, or even getting “right” with God. It is God’s way of restoring the original design of creation. God’s purpose in creating us was love (Eph. 1), and the end and goal of Christianity is the Person. He wants you to know and love Him.
Yes, I think God is quite the romantic.
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Inner Desire
How do we deal with disappointment and loss? What do we do when we lose something we want? What actions, attitudes, and things do we tell ourselves when we experience those disappointments, losses, and desires that seemingly remained unfulfilled and unmet?
What I want to attempt to illustrate here is something that I believe may be helpful in dealing with future disappointment with desires. It is something I stumbled across while journaling one morning regarding my own desires.
God tells us in the Psalms that when we delight in Him, He will grant us the desires of our heart. Many of the desires are part of His imprint. While our sin nature taints and distorts the desires, the root or core of it is still good—because it is placed within us by One Who is good.
I find that the distinction I fail to make when it comes to desires is the separation of the concrete from the core desire. What do I mean by this? Let me use an example that I think almost everyone is familiar with—the experience of dating and breaking up.
What is the core or root desire in dating? It is (by God’s design) to share one’s life with another (and there are even deeper desires under this, but I want to leave that for a future post). What I think happens as dating relationships begin and progress is that the core desire is transposed into the desire to be with the individual. The abstract desire finds a concrete manifestation with a person. The desire moves from “I want to share my life with someone” to “I want to be with person X.” I see no issue with this happening—I think it is both normal and good.
However, what happens in a break up? Here is where I think the danger lies. It is easy to feel that the desire is lost and will never happen. What is known and true is that the desire to be with person X will not happen. But let us make the careful separation of that desire and what is really underneath—the “inner desire”—to be with someone. We have confused the core desire with its present instance. And when that instance is lost, we confuse the losing of that instance to the loss of the core. In no way is this true.
As we progress through the process of healing and mourning losses, I think it valuable to separate the real from the possible. When the possible does not happen (in our example, being with person X), it does not mean that the real will not happen (being with someone). And choosing to believe that will not be easy.
A core desire (loses its separation from) >> the “implementation” of a desire (and when we lose the “implementation”) >> we feel the core desire is lost. (this is not true)
A core desire (is good, and because of sin) >> we will gain and lose “satisfactions” of it (but) >> the core desire is good and still remains (and will be fulfilled).
I hope that I have communicated this in a manner that is understandable. I cannot underscore its importance (in my opinion) to how we work through losses.
What I want to attempt to illustrate here is something that I believe may be helpful in dealing with future disappointment with desires. It is something I stumbled across while journaling one morning regarding my own desires.
God tells us in the Psalms that when we delight in Him, He will grant us the desires of our heart. Many of the desires are part of His imprint. While our sin nature taints and distorts the desires, the root or core of it is still good—because it is placed within us by One Who is good.
I find that the distinction I fail to make when it comes to desires is the separation of the concrete from the core desire. What do I mean by this? Let me use an example that I think almost everyone is familiar with—the experience of dating and breaking up.
What is the core or root desire in dating? It is (by God’s design) to share one’s life with another (and there are even deeper desires under this, but I want to leave that for a future post). What I think happens as dating relationships begin and progress is that the core desire is transposed into the desire to be with the individual. The abstract desire finds a concrete manifestation with a person. The desire moves from “I want to share my life with someone” to “I want to be with person X.” I see no issue with this happening—I think it is both normal and good.
However, what happens in a break up? Here is where I think the danger lies. It is easy to feel that the desire is lost and will never happen. What is known and true is that the desire to be with person X will not happen. But let us make the careful separation of that desire and what is really underneath—the “inner desire”—to be with someone. We have confused the core desire with its present instance. And when that instance is lost, we confuse the losing of that instance to the loss of the core. In no way is this true.
As we progress through the process of healing and mourning losses, I think it valuable to separate the real from the possible. When the possible does not happen (in our example, being with person X), it does not mean that the real will not happen (being with someone). And choosing to believe that will not be easy.
A core desire (loses its separation from) >> the “implementation” of a desire (and when we lose the “implementation”) >> we feel the core desire is lost. (this is not true)
A core desire (is good, and because of sin) >> we will gain and lose “satisfactions” of it (but) >> the core desire is good and still remains (and will be fulfilled).
I hope that I have communicated this in a manner that is understandable. I cannot underscore its importance (in my opinion) to how we work through losses.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Testimony (at the Point on 03/05/2006)
In the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana has finally found what he has been looking for all his life. It is a defining moment – not only for him, but for his father, who has been looking for it as well. In an attempt to carry the cup of Christ outside of its resting place, an earthquake results and the cup appears to be perilously close to being lost forever. After one of the members of the team is lost in an attempt to recover the cup, Indiana tries to reach for it while hanging from one arm tightly gripped by his father. But with only one hand, the grip is loose and his father cannot keep his hold. As Indiana strains for the cup, the very thing that represents a lifetime of desire and searching for him, his father speaks words that I hope will speak in your heart. “Indiana… Indiana, let it go.” And in that moment, what really matters was discovered.
What Indiana sees and understands is that his search for the cup is not really for the cup, but for his father. And in that moment, when his father (one who has also been searching for it most of his life) tells him to let it go, Indiana realizes that he has gained the person that mattered the most – the one who has fueled his search for the cup – his dad. And he releases the cup of Christ and rides off with his father. A new chapter opens in his life by closing the previous one.
The Father has taken me on a journey this last year where He has asked me to let go of many things.
• He has asked me to let go of my fear, not only of things I have not done, but of Him
• He has asked me to let go of my sense of safety and cautiousness – wanting to be certain about things before acting
• He has asked me to let go of my earthly father and my expectations of what I had hoped would be a great relationship and friendship with him.
• He has asked me to let go of my concept of Who the Father is; those concepts based on my earthly father.
• He has asked me to let go of some of the worldly things that kept me from having a relationship with Him.
• He has asked me to let go of my selfish desire to be alone and in solitude, and reach out to others.
• He has asked me to forgive and let go of the hurt that kept me bitter against Him.
I want to share with you two of these that were and in some cases still are important. The first is the loss of a relationship with my earthly father.
Due to circumstances too long to get into, I have had to separate myself from my dad. In doing so, I never went through the process of allowing myself to mourn that loss. I moved on and closed my heart down – trying to cover the wound and the desire that existed. And so it sat for over four years festering.
Last year at this time I went through some challenging times that brought me to the Point (and this Sunday represents my one year anniversary of attending here). God was so gracious to place people in my life that pursued me and saw something underneath my pain and disgust for God. At the time I was bitter against Him – but I understand now my bitterness with Him was because of my earthly dad. In February of last year, I wrote the following on the message board:
“It just goes to show that Christianity is yet another religion that illustrates the concept of the blind leading the blind. As someone who is outside the church looking in, the outright weakness of belief that has been illustrated in this discussion is yet another good reason for my decision to walk away from it several years ago. Why should I waste another minute of my time attempting to defend a book that there isn’t even consistent agreement in this forum, much less the church at large?.... I realized that I could not give Him all of me, and rather than walk the fence of a partial belief, it was better for me to leave it behind. Perhaps if you can’t be hot, it is time to stop being lukewarm, and start being cold. That at least is something God can work with.”
Yet Kara, John Thompson, Anthony, Kekoa, and many others reached out to me when my life began to change and God called me back to Him. What I have discovered through counseling this last year is the wounds I have tried to cover and make unimportant, and how they have affected me.
But the most important thing that the Father slowly tearing out of me is how I see Him. How careful we must be as men, and women, who are to be parents – as our role in the life of our children will provide them the first glimpse of Who God is. And my desire is that my children would hear their heavenly Father’s voice and run into His arms because of their experience with me.
And so He has worked on me, breaking the misconceptions and incorrect views I have had of Him. I saw him as mean, cruel, cold-hearted, black and white, strict, and someone I did not want to be around. After all, I had made the decision that my dad was not one I wanted to be with any more, and if God was anything like Him, then God was not on my ‘favorite person list’ either.
As I have learned to let go and leave some of my baggage behind, and work through the process of healing, many things have been helpful along the way. George MacDonald has been especially helpful to me in his book, The Curate’s Awakening, when he says:
“How do I know there is a God at all? And how am I to know that such a man as Jesus ever lived? I could answer neither. But in the meantime I was reading a story – was drawn to a Man, and was trying to understand His being, and character, and principles of his life and action. To sum it all up, not many months had passed before I had forgotten to seek the answer to either question: they were in fact no longer questions. I had seen the man Jesus Christ, and in him had known the Father of him and of me.
My dear sir, no conviction can be got – or if it could be got, would be of any lasting value – through that dealer of secondhand goods, the intellect. If by it we could prove there is a God, it would be of small avail indeed. We must see him and know him. And I know no other way of knowing there is a God but that which reveals what he is – and that way is Jesus Christ and he is revealed on earth…..
Your business… is to acquaint yourself with the man Jesus: he will be to you the one to reveal the Father. Take your New Testament as if you had never seen it before, and read to find out. The point is, there was a man who said he knew God and that if you would give heed to him, you should know him too.” (p.54)
And so I am in the process of walking through the gospels in search of Christ, reading, as Van Gogh read, searching for the man who wrote it. And through that, the process of letting go has moved deeper into my life.
Logically, letting go makes sense. But this letting go is something that occurs in the heart, not the head. How challenging it is to merge the mind with the heart. The mind can help though, and here are a few things that have helped me to let go of my ‘cup’.
It is difficult to let go because what is known seems safer than what is unknown. Healing brings new risks – a heart that is healed is one that can and will be hurt again. In our attempts to protect ourselves from being hurt, we leave pain in our lives to cripple the heart – the wellspring of our lives.
When I let go, I am not saying what I am letting go of did not matter or is unimportant. If anything, the first step in letting go is to admit the importance of the person or thing I am losing. In my case, I admit that a relationship with my dad was important to me, and hurts me that it cannot be at this time.
When I let go, I search for the desire under the desire – what is it really that pains me and what is it that really matters? In what ways have I been created with this longing and is there a legitimate way to satisfy this desire? Am I seeking to satisfy this desire through other means than that which is best for me? What am I after here – ultimately, a relationship with the Father.
When I let go, I admit and feel the pain and loss of the person, concept, or thing I am losing. I fully acknowledge the hurt and the loss. I feel, I cry, I weep; I enter into a time where the wound is rinsed and the Father can come in and clean my heart. I let Him in, I invite him to those corners of my life, and allow him to scrub them clean – removing the scar tissue (however painful) as He cleanses me and works in me the healing process.
When I let go, I usually do so over time – it is not an immediate process – and it is one that may be a daily surrender. Part of loving myself (knowing that love is patient) is giving myself the time to heal and grow. I find frequently I want to rush and be done – just quit hurting already. But it is important for me to keep in mind that it took time for me to be wounded, and it will take time for that wound to heal.
The time required can also depend on how long I have allowed the wound to go untouched and untreated. One of the mistakes I have made in my own wounds has been to attempt to ignore or dismiss them. All this did was create a false sense of healing and the limb which was lame never healed. Time does not heal all wounds; in fact, it can make them grow much worse.
When I let go, I am acknowledging the reality of life, the certainty of pain I will experience, and the willingness to risk again. There are not many things in life that are certain – we know about death and taxes – and we can add to that list pain.
When I let go, I find on the other side that what I was holding onto so tightly was not so important, and that what I gain is so much more. Of course a relationship with my dad was and is important, but I have gained a relationship with Abba, the perfect Father. And my Father is perfect and tender and good – all that I wanted and longed for in a Father. How many times have I missed the good things God wants to give to me because I have stubbornly or fearfully kept holding on to the things I thought I had to have?
MacDonald gave me a beautiful image of the Father when he says, “In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself. Therefore, I say to son or daughter who has no pleasure in the name Father, ‘You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life. All that human tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness of love, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father – of the maker of Fatherhood.”
When I let go, I am being conformed to the image of Christ, just as He emptied Himself of everything for me. I learn to be like Him in remembering what is important – what was the most important thing from His point of view was the restoration of a relationship with us. God desires within the deepest parts of Who He is for us to be healed, free, and whole (because that is Who He is). Let go of the broken joint and allow the doctor to set it. Allow the potter to shape the clay, removing the roughness and edges that only serve to detract from the beauty he is planning to make you into.
What have I lost? I have lost (in this process of letting go) a picture of God that I think is incorrect, and more to the point, brutal. But oh what I have gained. It is a joy indescribable to wake up in the morning and reflect on the love and tenderness of the Father. It is amazing to know in the depths of my heart that He not only cares, but rejoices in my successes, and is right there with me in my weaknesses. His power is perfected in weakness.
What is it in your life that Christ may be asking you to let go of? Tonight I have shared with you some things I am leaving behind, and I can look back this last year and see the fruits of letting go. There is still much to be done, but it is worth it – and I look forward to growing to know my heavenly Father.
I want to leave you with a movie that I have shared with some, with Robin Williams called Patch Adams. In the movie he surrounds and envelopes with kindness a girl he is interested in by the name Carin. In the movie, we find that she has been abused – and in a poignant moment, a window in her soul is opened. “I hated men so much… and then I met you.” What baggage do you carry, in the form of people, things, or past experiences that shape you into hating or keeping you from drawing closer to His presence and the freedom He wants for you? Paul says it was for freedom that Christ set us free – and He wants your freedom – it cost Him his life to purchase it.
In my life, with the experiences with my dad, I can say.. I hated the God of my father, until I met the Abba of Christ. He has changed my heart, and He can change yours. Indiana, let it go.
What Indiana sees and understands is that his search for the cup is not really for the cup, but for his father. And in that moment, when his father (one who has also been searching for it most of his life) tells him to let it go, Indiana realizes that he has gained the person that mattered the most – the one who has fueled his search for the cup – his dad. And he releases the cup of Christ and rides off with his father. A new chapter opens in his life by closing the previous one.
The Father has taken me on a journey this last year where He has asked me to let go of many things.
• He has asked me to let go of my fear, not only of things I have not done, but of Him
• He has asked me to let go of my sense of safety and cautiousness – wanting to be certain about things before acting
• He has asked me to let go of my earthly father and my expectations of what I had hoped would be a great relationship and friendship with him.
• He has asked me to let go of my concept of Who the Father is; those concepts based on my earthly father.
• He has asked me to let go of some of the worldly things that kept me from having a relationship with Him.
• He has asked me to let go of my selfish desire to be alone and in solitude, and reach out to others.
• He has asked me to forgive and let go of the hurt that kept me bitter against Him.
I want to share with you two of these that were and in some cases still are important. The first is the loss of a relationship with my earthly father.
Due to circumstances too long to get into, I have had to separate myself from my dad. In doing so, I never went through the process of allowing myself to mourn that loss. I moved on and closed my heart down – trying to cover the wound and the desire that existed. And so it sat for over four years festering.
Last year at this time I went through some challenging times that brought me to the Point (and this Sunday represents my one year anniversary of attending here). God was so gracious to place people in my life that pursued me and saw something underneath my pain and disgust for God. At the time I was bitter against Him – but I understand now my bitterness with Him was because of my earthly dad. In February of last year, I wrote the following on the message board:
“It just goes to show that Christianity is yet another religion that illustrates the concept of the blind leading the blind. As someone who is outside the church looking in, the outright weakness of belief that has been illustrated in this discussion is yet another good reason for my decision to walk away from it several years ago. Why should I waste another minute of my time attempting to defend a book that there isn’t even consistent agreement in this forum, much less the church at large?.... I realized that I could not give Him all of me, and rather than walk the fence of a partial belief, it was better for me to leave it behind. Perhaps if you can’t be hot, it is time to stop being lukewarm, and start being cold. That at least is something God can work with.”
Yet Kara, John Thompson, Anthony, Kekoa, and many others reached out to me when my life began to change and God called me back to Him. What I have discovered through counseling this last year is the wounds I have tried to cover and make unimportant, and how they have affected me.
But the most important thing that the Father slowly tearing out of me is how I see Him. How careful we must be as men, and women, who are to be parents – as our role in the life of our children will provide them the first glimpse of Who God is. And my desire is that my children would hear their heavenly Father’s voice and run into His arms because of their experience with me.
And so He has worked on me, breaking the misconceptions and incorrect views I have had of Him. I saw him as mean, cruel, cold-hearted, black and white, strict, and someone I did not want to be around. After all, I had made the decision that my dad was not one I wanted to be with any more, and if God was anything like Him, then God was not on my ‘favorite person list’ either.
As I have learned to let go and leave some of my baggage behind, and work through the process of healing, many things have been helpful along the way. George MacDonald has been especially helpful to me in his book, The Curate’s Awakening, when he says:
“How do I know there is a God at all? And how am I to know that such a man as Jesus ever lived? I could answer neither. But in the meantime I was reading a story – was drawn to a Man, and was trying to understand His being, and character, and principles of his life and action. To sum it all up, not many months had passed before I had forgotten to seek the answer to either question: they were in fact no longer questions. I had seen the man Jesus Christ, and in him had known the Father of him and of me.
My dear sir, no conviction can be got – or if it could be got, would be of any lasting value – through that dealer of secondhand goods, the intellect. If by it we could prove there is a God, it would be of small avail indeed. We must see him and know him. And I know no other way of knowing there is a God but that which reveals what he is – and that way is Jesus Christ and he is revealed on earth…..
Your business… is to acquaint yourself with the man Jesus: he will be to you the one to reveal the Father. Take your New Testament as if you had never seen it before, and read to find out. The point is, there was a man who said he knew God and that if you would give heed to him, you should know him too.” (p.54)
And so I am in the process of walking through the gospels in search of Christ, reading, as Van Gogh read, searching for the man who wrote it. And through that, the process of letting go has moved deeper into my life.
Logically, letting go makes sense. But this letting go is something that occurs in the heart, not the head. How challenging it is to merge the mind with the heart. The mind can help though, and here are a few things that have helped me to let go of my ‘cup’.
It is difficult to let go because what is known seems safer than what is unknown. Healing brings new risks – a heart that is healed is one that can and will be hurt again. In our attempts to protect ourselves from being hurt, we leave pain in our lives to cripple the heart – the wellspring of our lives.
When I let go, I am not saying what I am letting go of did not matter or is unimportant. If anything, the first step in letting go is to admit the importance of the person or thing I am losing. In my case, I admit that a relationship with my dad was important to me, and hurts me that it cannot be at this time.
When I let go, I search for the desire under the desire – what is it really that pains me and what is it that really matters? In what ways have I been created with this longing and is there a legitimate way to satisfy this desire? Am I seeking to satisfy this desire through other means than that which is best for me? What am I after here – ultimately, a relationship with the Father.
When I let go, I admit and feel the pain and loss of the person, concept, or thing I am losing. I fully acknowledge the hurt and the loss. I feel, I cry, I weep; I enter into a time where the wound is rinsed and the Father can come in and clean my heart. I let Him in, I invite him to those corners of my life, and allow him to scrub them clean – removing the scar tissue (however painful) as He cleanses me and works in me the healing process.
When I let go, I usually do so over time – it is not an immediate process – and it is one that may be a daily surrender. Part of loving myself (knowing that love is patient) is giving myself the time to heal and grow. I find frequently I want to rush and be done – just quit hurting already. But it is important for me to keep in mind that it took time for me to be wounded, and it will take time for that wound to heal.
The time required can also depend on how long I have allowed the wound to go untouched and untreated. One of the mistakes I have made in my own wounds has been to attempt to ignore or dismiss them. All this did was create a false sense of healing and the limb which was lame never healed. Time does not heal all wounds; in fact, it can make them grow much worse.
When I let go, I am acknowledging the reality of life, the certainty of pain I will experience, and the willingness to risk again. There are not many things in life that are certain – we know about death and taxes – and we can add to that list pain.
When I let go, I find on the other side that what I was holding onto so tightly was not so important, and that what I gain is so much more. Of course a relationship with my dad was and is important, but I have gained a relationship with Abba, the perfect Father. And my Father is perfect and tender and good – all that I wanted and longed for in a Father. How many times have I missed the good things God wants to give to me because I have stubbornly or fearfully kept holding on to the things I thought I had to have?
MacDonald gave me a beautiful image of the Father when he says, “In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself. Therefore, I say to son or daughter who has no pleasure in the name Father, ‘You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life. All that human tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness of love, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father – of the maker of Fatherhood.”
When I let go, I am being conformed to the image of Christ, just as He emptied Himself of everything for me. I learn to be like Him in remembering what is important – what was the most important thing from His point of view was the restoration of a relationship with us. God desires within the deepest parts of Who He is for us to be healed, free, and whole (because that is Who He is). Let go of the broken joint and allow the doctor to set it. Allow the potter to shape the clay, removing the roughness and edges that only serve to detract from the beauty he is planning to make you into.
What have I lost? I have lost (in this process of letting go) a picture of God that I think is incorrect, and more to the point, brutal. But oh what I have gained. It is a joy indescribable to wake up in the morning and reflect on the love and tenderness of the Father. It is amazing to know in the depths of my heart that He not only cares, but rejoices in my successes, and is right there with me in my weaknesses. His power is perfected in weakness.
What is it in your life that Christ may be asking you to let go of? Tonight I have shared with you some things I am leaving behind, and I can look back this last year and see the fruits of letting go. There is still much to be done, but it is worth it – and I look forward to growing to know my heavenly Father.
I want to leave you with a movie that I have shared with some, with Robin Williams called Patch Adams. In the movie he surrounds and envelopes with kindness a girl he is interested in by the name Carin. In the movie, we find that she has been abused – and in a poignant moment, a window in her soul is opened. “I hated men so much… and then I met you.” What baggage do you carry, in the form of people, things, or past experiences that shape you into hating or keeping you from drawing closer to His presence and the freedom He wants for you? Paul says it was for freedom that Christ set us free – and He wants your freedom – it cost Him his life to purchase it.
In my life, with the experiences with my dad, I can say.. I hated the God of my father, until I met the Abba of Christ. He has changed my heart, and He can change yours. Indiana, let it go.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Change
Last night in the men’s group we discussed prayer and if it changes the heart of God. Can prayer change the mind of God? Change is not a word I tend to associate with Him, but when I reflected on it last night, I came to the conclusion that He can change. And after meditating on it this morning, I want to clarify some of my thoughts surrounding God and change.
For me, it seems the confusion lies with the word “change”. Google defines change as to “become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature.” What I would like to draw from this definition is this: the concept of change is a human idea. By the definition listed, God does not change. I want to also note something that I think is important.
Many times we apply the word “can’t” to God. Perhaps we say “God cannot lie.” There is another way of looking at it – whatever God says is truth. It is not that God can’t, is that whatever He does is. If God says tomorrow that 2 + 2 = 5, then the universe would reflect that truth.
Let’s go back to prayer and change. I am suggested here that the human definition of change does not apply to God. God acts consistent with His character. That is what He means when He says that He does not change. Let me be careful here in this definition. What I mean is that the actions that God takes are in perfect conformity with His attributes. His actions are holy, righteous, just, loving, merciful, and truthful.
Let me go one more step here. When God says He does not change, it does not mean that His mind is made up on every situation and circumstance. When He chooses to save some people and send others to hell, both actions are consistent with Who He is. This is not change. It is not “different in essence.” He does not lose his “original nature.” We are made in His image, and make choices, many that are ‘consistent’ (in a frail human way) with who we are (or think we are). Imagine the infinite possibilities with God.
Prayer not only brings us closer to God (the primary purpose), but serves to make requests of a loving Father, who gives generously and without reproach (James 1). And in those requests, God chooses to answer or not answer as He sees fit, in perfect conformity with His character. Recall the parable of the persistent woman who came before the judge in Luke 18:1-8.
Does God change? By human definition, no. But can my prayers touch His heart and move Him to act in different ways? Yes.
For me, it seems the confusion lies with the word “change”. Google defines change as to “become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature.” What I would like to draw from this definition is this: the concept of change is a human idea. By the definition listed, God does not change. I want to also note something that I think is important.
Many times we apply the word “can’t” to God. Perhaps we say “God cannot lie.” There is another way of looking at it – whatever God says is truth. It is not that God can’t, is that whatever He does is. If God says tomorrow that 2 + 2 = 5, then the universe would reflect that truth.
Let’s go back to prayer and change. I am suggested here that the human definition of change does not apply to God. God acts consistent with His character. That is what He means when He says that He does not change. Let me be careful here in this definition. What I mean is that the actions that God takes are in perfect conformity with His attributes. His actions are holy, righteous, just, loving, merciful, and truthful.
Let me go one more step here. When God says He does not change, it does not mean that His mind is made up on every situation and circumstance. When He chooses to save some people and send others to hell, both actions are consistent with Who He is. This is not change. It is not “different in essence.” He does not lose his “original nature.” We are made in His image, and make choices, many that are ‘consistent’ (in a frail human way) with who we are (or think we are). Imagine the infinite possibilities with God.
Prayer not only brings us closer to God (the primary purpose), but serves to make requests of a loving Father, who gives generously and without reproach (James 1). And in those requests, God chooses to answer or not answer as He sees fit, in perfect conformity with His character. Recall the parable of the persistent woman who came before the judge in Luke 18:1-8.
Does God change? By human definition, no. But can my prayers touch His heart and move Him to act in different ways? Yes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)