Response: The Science is IN: God is the Answer

For people within the sphere of religion, any religion, Brian Bethune’s & Genna Buck’s article The Science is IN: God is the Answer (McCleans, 30 March 2015), comes as no surprise. People raised in secure loving religious homes tend to have greater skills at facing the realities of adulthood. Children raised within this kind of environment tend to be better equipped at re-defining themselves when they reach both puberty and that “ah-ha” moment we now define as “individuation.” i.e. that phase in life wherein a child ceases to define his/her-self in terms of their parent’s values and creates their own value system, beliefs, and life priorities. Granted, this can be a time of trial & error run amuck; but, hey, that’s what growth and transition are all about. If you get it right the first time, you’re holding on way too tight!

That being stated, I have encountered a LARGE number of twenty-somethings, who come from religious families— conservative Christian, liberal Christian, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim (Sunni/Shiite), and others, who are a psychological mess. Their lives have no borders or boundaries; they can’t make a decision about anything; commitment to anything is terrifying; and their ties to any belief system change hourly. “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

I’m sure Lisa Miller’s (the researcher who studied this topic for 18 years) efforts yielded factually supported data. But I wonder if she ever actually met an adult child from a conservative Christian family? Or Catholic family? Or modern-day Jew? There is very little faith left to their religion. They are, in effect, practical “religious-atheists” who call upon their religious roots in times of disorientation or trouble and then quickly return to their lives as really nice people.

Our societies search for spirituality outside of faith has only yielded a feel-good-faith; certainly not one that will hold up under the pressure of postChristian non-presuppositions about why it’s not all about me. It is, ya know.

Serving God

From Dr, Gary, Davis, Clueless, Christian, Serving, God, faith a definitively Christian point of view I have never understood the concept of serving God. It’s just odd, that’s all. Let me raise some of the issues I’ve face when I consider serving God.

1. Just what does it look like? More likely than not it actually means serving other people.

2. The very idea of serving God makes no sense. I mean, really, what does the Lord God of the universe need in our service? He created everything, maintains everything, and honors those who honor (fear) Him. He certainly does not need our service. It’s not logical.

3. It makes more logical sense that He instead is calling to us to love Him. Of course, this raises a tricky question. If I were to ask you how you feel when you love your mother, father, wife, husband, or children, you could identify the shape of that feeling—what it “feels” like. In contrast, I would doubt you could identify the shape of your love for God. What does it feel like? What words describe the powerful emotional bond you have with the God Who made you? Get my drift?

More than likely, God has called us to love Him and to serve one another. Whether that service entails missional work abroad or in our own godless culture, in gathering basic food for the poor, the homeless, the destitute, it may or may not be reflective of our love for God. It may be a simple, humanitarian, act of love for humanity. If it is to last it will have to have a greater strength underlying it. For genuine Christians that underpinning is their deep love for God.

We are called to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind…, and then our neighbor as ourselves.” But the service we express toward Him should more properly be directed toward our fellow man (read, everybody). The inverse is, of course, true; that if we love those around us we also serve God’s purposes on this planet. But this is not simply splitting hairs. We are called to love our God, and that is something that goes beyond the cerebral, beyond the linear-sequential explanations of Truth or theology. It is an emotion. Does emotion have a place in your love for God?

Emotion is an aspect of our faith that we dare not leave at the door of a mental understanding of Christian salvation. It is an integral part of the whole package of faith, “heart, soul, & mind.” Passion has never been a mental motivation; it must rise from the heart.

In the future may you grow in your faith where you truly learn to love God with your whole heart, body, and mind. And may that love be exhibited and amplified in your service to the rest of this world.

For what it’s worth,

Gary

Playing God

Playing God. How many of us do this unconsciously every day of our lives. Of course, if you are an atheist, you cannot play; there is no one to impersonate. But if you are anything else you have probably wanted to be God in some situation or another. Sometimes, for the good—as in saving a life or preventing a disaster: other times, for your own selfish control—you just want things to go your way. Everyone else be damned. This last reason is the most likely explanation why you are not God. You’re not that good at playing Him. It’s always too much all about you.

Too many of us believe that playing God is about exerting absolute power over things. Some of the men I know try to do this in their immediate families with varying degrees of disastrous results. Fathers want to be dictators or drill sergeants, yelling out commands with unquestioned authority. Thank God He isn’t like that. To the contrary; he actually tells us what He wants from us, so there will be no question. Psalm 51:16, 17 puts it best—

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.

You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

Basically, outward shows of worship do not compare in any way with an inner understanding of our place in the universe. But why broken?” Really?!? Do any of us truly need to ask? Our propensity to play God is only usurped by our arrogant assumption to become God, at least of our own little realm.

So thus do we come to play God with everything and everyone around us. Our species has a natural proclivity to assert ourselves. We are restless. We cannot wait for definition or direction; we must determine our own direction with only a casual glance to the impression we may leave on this planet, in the universe, or on other creatures. It truly has become all about us.

We become the God we reject and complain when others will not play the game our way. And so follows war, cultural degradation, family dissolution, and a re-writing (in many forms) of the internally inscribed moral-code; for there is no one left to constrain us…; but us.

Really!

Though I am but one man, one human, of one species among many, I do have a sense that I am part of something far greater than myself. And though I do dare to play god at times, in my own little universe, I am always mindful that I am but a small player in a grand scheme, designed by Someone much more omnipotent than myself.

So the next time you are tempted to assert your manhood, or your womanhood, or your position or authority over another, do so from the perspective that you are no greater than the God of the Universe dares allow you: and prostrate yourself before Him. Next to me.

Gary

Aftermath

Tragedy strikes all of us at one time or another. Whether it be death of a loved one or the devastation of home & livelihood its effects upon us are shattering. The experience, the loss, is overwhelming; it crushes our spirit and sucks out our very life’s-breath. Most of us have experienced such tragedies in our lives, leaving us empty and numb. Words of comfort and solace barely get through my blank detachment.

Then comes the aftermath— sorting through the remnants of a life, trying to rebuild, trying to make sense of the physical and personal destruction that has just consumed every fiber of your being. There are the BIG things— replacing a home, a business, a livelihood; taking care of children, parents, employees, those who are crushed and exhausted. For some, it means even rebuilding a country after a catastrophic national disaster or defeat. Yes, these things must be addressed, even though your energies are already spent.

In some way, though, it is the small things that are more difficult to deal with— the loss of photos, of a history that was filled with joy and frivolity; a loss of trinkets, personal gifts, torn shreds of clothing that once draped a loved one in grace & beauty. Memories all, now gone.

It is in the aftermath of destruction & loss that our metal is proven. It is the manner in which we face the aftermath that we reveal our courage or collapse into a mire of grief & despondency. There is not always hope after some of the volleys life sends our way. But there is always strength to be found in arms of the God who created us, sustains us, and now carries us…, if we will but let Him do so.

Never discount the succor and rejuvenation that flow from the Life-Source of all Being. The God of the Universe— Jesus Christ.

Have a nice week,

Gary

the hunter

An “impersonal God”— well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads— better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap— best of all. 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… .

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?

~ C.S. LEWIS, Miracles

Many of us (though not all), in searching to define and understand ourselves, come to a point where we consider the possibility of god, or, if you will, God. Such is our nature to search, to explore, to discover more of the mysteries of our inner selves and the vast realm of the universe beyond. Following a path of curiosity in either direction will give rise to questions like— Is there more than just me? Am I a part of something much greater than I might imagine? Is there something behind the physical universe?

At this point most of us stop thinking. We are too busy with life, work, families, new babies, and sports to have any energy left for such BIG questions. But WHAT IF…? What if we detected an uneasy sensation within ourselves that there might be someone out there, somewhere, looking for us? This is a sensation worth examining, especially if it becomes a recurring theme in your life. Could it be that there is a Great Hunter, the Great God-Creator Himself, seeking you? If He is, you cannot run, you cannot hide. And you cannot find rest for your soul until He finds you. Maybe you have something He wants? Maybe He’ll have something you want? Or maybe He simply wants to give you something?

Most plausibly, He wants you to stop your running away from Him in fear and, instead, have a cup of tea with Him. I wonder what that conversation might sound like.

Being hunted by God is not a thing to treat glibly. It is not a trifle. Engage cautiously.

Have a nice week,

Gary

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