God of Serious Business, God of Serious Fun

The other night I found myself on my way to pick up my brother from work. It was late and there were almost no other cars on the road, and as I drove there was just a wonderful laid-back feeling in the air. I was even able to roll down the windows and enjoy the fresh spring breeze that was rolling in. I was feeling pretty good and decided to turn on the radio and almost immediately "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates comes on. Its a song you just don't pass up. So as I drove on I unashamedly allowed myself to just tap the steering wheel and jam out to the song. And as I did so I strongly felt God enjoying the moment with me. It was one of those pure, wonderful moments of fun with God. It also caused me to reflect on the seemingly incomprehensible nature of God and the unique opportunity for relationship we have with Him. After all, He is the Living God of the cosmos. In so many ways He is beyond our ability to understand. Mysterious, awe-inspiring, and holy. When He does interact with us, especially in the biblical narrative, it is usually about serious business, because He is deeply about serious things, such as the healing of our hearts, the redemption of all mankind and the world, and the eradication of sin and evil, etc. He is a serious God, but He is also the God of fun. He did invent it after all. Yes, God loves fun and  it is a deep part of His heart. And we, well we get to share in that. The vast God of the universe, of the Bible, wants to have fun with you. Treasure that. And ask Him to reveal more of that part of His heart to you. Let him into those moments of joy and fun and ask to experience more of His heart in them. Trust me, you'll love it.

Anger With God

  "When my soul was embittered, 

when I was pricked in heart, 

I was brutish and ignorant; 

I was like a beast toward you."

Psalm 73: 22-23 (ESV)

The most beautiful thing about God is his heart for the world. Our main image of God should be that of loving Father. This describes not only how we relate to and experience God, but also describes his heart towards us. Anyone who has felt themselves awash in the loving presence of God will deeply know this to be true. Yet we live in a world full of deep pain and hurt. In this life many have and will come to know tears and disappointment well. This raises the deep question: "Why God?" But in addition to this question, an emotion is often brought to life: anger. A couple of years ago if anyone had asked me if I felt any anger towards God for the things he allowed in my life (the suicide of my Father, deep trauma, repeated personal setbacks, etc.) I would have said absolutely not. Yet after a painful breakup and a seemingly disappointing end to my college career, I discovered that I was quite wrong.  

The sad truth is that in this life many of us may come to deep anger and resentment towards God for the things he allows. The key is being honest with God about the way we feel. This can be a scary thing, but the beautiful thing about God is that he can handle it. In fact, as I learned, if we are to move forward in intimacy with him he wants it out. Oftentimes, as I processed through my anger, I found myself on the floor just being brutally honest with him about the way I felt. What I found was the he was more than understanding. In fact, he was deeply caring, despite my ugliness towards him. For me, the key was not just to acknowledge my anger and let it out, but also to then repent of it, often despite how I was feeling. In addition, after letting it out and repenting, I repeatedly asked God to come change my heart. He will indeed do so when we faithfully ask. Although this process, to put it crudely, sucks, it not only leads to deep cleansing and healing, but a genuinely more intimate relationship with him. And you never know the wonderful new way he will open up more of himself to you. This makes it a process well worth going through.

"Nevertheless, I am continually with you; 

you hold my right hand. 

You guide me with your counsel, 

and afterward you will receive me to glory."

Psalm 73:24-25 (ESV)

Sitting Cross-legged with God (Literally)

About nine months ago I was sitting on the floor of my apartment weeping. Not just crying, but weeping in the truest sense. A two and a half year relationship I had been in had just ended for good and I was utterly heartbroken. What made it worse was that my breakup was serving as a catalyst to bring out deeper feelings of loss and disappointment that had been hiding under the surface for some time. I'd been through some difficult circumstances over the past seven years, such as losing my father, and they had left more of a mark on me than I was aware. Heartache is painful enough but when its magnified by feelings of deeper pain stemming from loss and trial it feels almost unbearable. This was also my final semester of  bible college and the semester had only begun. My relationship had pretty much been coextensive with my time at school, and the girl  I was with had been a huge part of my life on campus. I really hadn't known a whole lot time there without her. Not only did I miss her, but an environment that had once been familiar and comfortable was now a sad place that I just wanted to avoid. My campus was small, which made it hard to avoid her at times and easy to recall memories which now only made me sad. This all made it very hard to find the motivation to complete the schoolwork I had left to complete. I not only felt that my relationship was ending in disappointment, but also my college career. In fact, I had no clear idea or plan for what was to come next after the semester, except of course, for my student loans. Nothing was as I'd hoped it would be. So as I sat on my floor, feeling the heavy weight of sadness and loss, I decided that I was mad at God. In fact, deeply mad. I held him responsible for my sorrow and the way my life had gone over the past seven years and beyond. It's a horrible place to be in, feeling anger towards God, and I was feeling it. I was feeling it deeply.

So at the beginning of September I found myself in an almost comical position. Here I was, someone who had spent the last few years pursuing God and his word, taking out student loans and hoping to spend the rest of my life serving him, and I felt as if I wanted absolutely nothing more to do with him. I just wanted him to fix my circumstances. This might have been enough to drive some people towards abandoning their faith, but not me. It would be helpful to note that God had shown up in my life powerfully a number of times. I had no doubt of his existence. I was done with God, but not his existence. The God I was angry with was no imaginary deity. He had proven himself to be quite real. And he was about to become even more so.

As I processed through my heartache I started sitting on my floor asking God to encounter me and speak to me. Quite surprisingly he did. It was not just that he started to speak to me in a still small voice, but I started to sense invitations to sit cross-legged on the floor and talk to him. As I did I became keenly aware that he too was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from me, and we would actually start to chat. I had never experienced anything quite like this intimacy with him before . Now, I didn't share this with anyone, and while I was pretty confident it was actually God, the possibility that it was all in my mind remained. So, after a few weeks I found myself back home with my family for a week during fall break. I was still grieving and dealing with the pain of loss and disappointment, and was still feeling angry towards God. At one point my mom and I were in the car and I was sharing with her just how mad and disappointed I still was with him. She then got very quiet. I could tell she was trying to listen to God for me. After a few moments she shared with me what she felt him putting on her heart, how God could take my anger and disappointment and that he just wanted it out. She then paused and said, "I'm also getting the image of you and God just sitting cross-legged together on the floor." What struck me immediately was that I had never shared my experiences with anyone else, including my Mom. It was a beautiful confirmation that the God of the universe was actually sitting and talking to me. In a place where there was a deep release of pain, God was showing up in a new and profound way. Needless to say, it has been one of the defining moments of my life thus far.

I share this story as my first blog post because it sums up the new way of life God has been teaching me: mystery with intimacy. Ever since I became a Christian I have held a deep awe and reverence for God. Most Christians do. God is mystery. He is majesty. He is above and beyond what we can fully comprehend. He is high and lofty... and many Christians only ever approach him as such. Unfortunately, there is a temptation among many Christians to view God as so high and lofty, so majestic and mysterious, that he is practically unaccessible. You just don't talk to God as you would another person, and he certainly doesn't talk to you in such a way. For many Christians, the sense of mystery and reverence is there, but not so much the intimacy with God. But the God of the Bible, the God who created humanity and this world for fellowship with himself, who comes to us and lives among us in the person of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, would like to change that. God will go to great to great lengths to talk to us, even sit cross-legged with us on the floor. The invitation to increase that amazing intimacy is open to all, and the only thing we have to do is ask.