Who is God, and Why is the Question Important?

Who is God?  That might not be the question on the mind of many people, at least not on any kind of regular basis.  Sure, when significant things happen in life, they might wonder about some entity bigger than they are, but in the day to day runnings of life, most probably don't give a great deal of thought to the question. 

That often leads to the question getting relegated, as I mentioned, to those significant moments of life.  The problem is, those moments are most often tragic, or moments of pain and hurt.  A loved family member dies unexpectedly.  A relationship is painfully broken.  Then, the question comes out, why would God let/cause this to happen? 

I would suggest that the question of "Who is God" is most difficult to answer in those cases if one hasn't been asking the question throughout one's life.  If you start off each day asking who God is, and you see the sunshine, or the needed rain, or you hear the birds singing, or you see the fall colors, or new growth in the spring, you start to see God as much more involved in this life and world, than if you only focus on those significant moments.  And then, if you see God's hand working in these kind of ways, then you start to see that the supposed absence of God in those tough moments actually show that God's goodness is far more prevelant than the times of His supposed absence.

That's why this question is important, not just at those significant moments of life, but daily.  God created and designed this world to run in a particular way, a way that is truly fascinating to behold.  I've had the joy of living in places where you can see His hand at work in creation, and it truly is amazing to see.  I've had the joy of seeing God working in the lives of many people, and see how their recognition of His daily presence gives them far greater strength when the tough times inevitably hit.  When we relegate the question only to the big moments of life, we're going to be far more disappointed, because we fail to see how God is concerned with everything that happens each day.  We expect the miraculous, which God only seems to do on occasion, and then we are disappointed that God didn't throw a miracle our way to stop our pain. 

How does that question invade your daily life?  As it does, what do you see about who God is? 

Just what the Dr. Ordered

Over the past several years, I have been astounded at how God works.  Now, to be sure, I've always been astounded at what God has done for us, and how He continues to show His hand in this world, but there are those times when it becomes so obvious that even a blind guy like myself cannot help but notice.  Maybe it's just that He recognizes that I need the brick to the side of the head to get my attention every once in a while.

Let me start off by saying this.  I am an information junkie.  I am an information hoarder.  I love learning, and I love learning new things.  I love reading the things that are current, whether they are ministry, business, or leadership oriented.  I love reading them, learning new things, and then looking for ways to try them out.  I see my whole life as one long learning experience.

Over the past several years, it has just seemed way too obvious on the part of God that He would put exactly the information piece in front of me that I needed at that particular time, to fit a particular situation, problem, or challenge that lay ahead of me.  This week, already, I have had two occasions where there was some minor challenge or situation that needed addressing, and wouldn't you know it, I'd open up my email, or check out my facebook page, and there would be a link to the exact thing that I was thinking about and needing some guidance on.  I'm not one who believes in coincedence, but sees the guiding hand of God working unseen, behind the scenes.

Sometimes God shows His nature through His hiddeness, and sometimes He reveals exactly what is needed at exactly the right time.  And somehow, that just seems fitting for an information junkie like me.

Renewing the spirit, the mind, and the body

From Acts 3:19-20, "Repent therefore and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,..."

You haven't heard from me for a few days.  In part, this is because I have been undertaking a bit of a time of refreshing.  So often in life, we find that our particular careers and vocations make us hit the ground running, and I have experienced some of that over the past several months.  It isn't that we dislike our work, or that we find it burdensome, but rather, we discover that you can be doing something you love, but as you give your best and your all to it, every once in a while you need to have some time to just sit back and take a brief break from it.

My break is in the form of a class that I am taking.  But more than that, it's a time away from the hustle and bustle that comes with my chosen vocation (or maybe I should say the vocation chosen for me).  Time away doesn't mean that I'm uninvolved, but rather, that I take the opportunity for a bit of renewal of the mind, the spirit, and the body.  In fact, a couple of days ago, I found it very refreshing to simply sit in a church building for a time of prayer and of Bible reading.  In a way, it truly seemed as though the Spirit was doing some measure of cleansing of my mind and my spirit, which truly did cause my body to feel refreshed as well.  I hope to do that a few more times.

God's Spirit refreshes our spirits.  But more than that, I also believe that He does the same thing to our minds and our bodies.  Sometimes we need to feel the burdens of our vocations lifted for a time, to be re-invigorated for what God prepares ahead for us.  That refreshing then allows us to re-discover the joy of our vocation, as well as a greater focus.  For me, the academic portion of it also serves to sharpen my mind, which provides endless benefits when it comes to ministry.

A very present help

Psalm 46:1 describes God as a very present help in trouble.  Yet, that is when we humans often seem to see absence rather than presence.  As I've described throughout this week, we have a tendency to want God to not only be there, but to do something about the situation as we go through it.  Thus, when things don't happen the way we want, we start to wonder where God is, and why He isn't here in our time of need.

In Acts 9:5, we have a very interesting statement.  As Saul, the man who would later be known as Paul, was riding to go arrest Christians, Jesus showed Himself on the road.  He bluntly asks Saul why he is persecuting Him.  Think about that statement for a moment.  Saul, to our knowledge from the Bible, did not take part in Jesus' death.  So how could Jesus say that Saul was persecuting Him?  It's because Saul was persecuting Jesus' followers.  Jesus' presence was so intimately tied to His followers that, what happened to them, happened to Him. 

When we think about that for a moment, we come to the realization that we are, in some unexplainable way, God's presence in the world.  Yes, there are ways that God continues to demonstrate that He is active in this world, and I truly believe we are so focused on logical explanations that we miss much of it.  But God, in Jesus, is present in this world in every single one of those who follow Him and believe in Him.

That means that, when we who follow Jesus go see someone who is hurting, or who is in pain, Jesus is present there with them.  It seems that we, far too often, put the focus on our presence, worrying about what we will say and do.  We forget that our presence there means Jesus is there.  And if we were to remember that, and then communicate it with one another, it just seems that we just might be a greater source of comfort to each other.

Right now, you know someone who could use Jesus' presence.  Maybe it would be good to simply go see them, empathize with them, and then remind them that Jesus is present with them because you are there!

The Seeming Absence of God: A Control Issue?

Yesterday, I said that I would give you a few thoughts on why God may seem to be absent in particular moments of pain, trial, or suffering.  So today, without any further ado, let's launch into a few thoughts floating around in my head.

When something bad happens, regardless of what it is, we may have a tendency to wonder why God didn't stop it, or why He seemed to be absent at that time.  First, let me say that there are many tragedies that happen in this world, and they sting and hurt a lot.  So my thoughts on this are not to belittle the pain that comes when these happens, but rather, to seek out how our thinking may be flawed that leads up to us asking why God didn't do something about the situation.

So, something bad happens, and we wonder where God was as it happened.  We may even blame God for not doing something about it, or thinking that He just wasn't there.  We wonder why He didn't stop the drunk driver from getting in his car, or any other horrible scenario like this.  After all, God could have done something to prevent it.  He's almighty, and all powerful.  Surely He could have stopped such a thing from happening.

While these things are true, let's look at what we are asking of God in this situation.  We're asking Him to take control of someone who didn't control their own actions so that something bad would not happen.  We want God to take control to keep bad things from happening.  And I think that gives us a glimpse into our issues, and why they are our issues and not God's issues.

First, we're saying that the event which God could have prevented is bad.  While many of these may be so in His eyes, we're looking at it from a very subjective side.  What if we are the one who is getting into the car, thinking that we are okay to drive home.  Do we want God to, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, just stop us for a reason that we cannot determine?  Or if we were about to say that hurtful word that would cause damage to another, do we want God to display the kind of control which would instantly cut off what we wanted to say? 

This gets to the issue of control.  We want God to control the things that we think are bad.  The problem is, it's what we are calling bad.  While I don't believe that God wants anyone to be killed by a drunk driver, what we are really asking for is that God would stop anyone getting into a car when they don't have their full senses with them.  What if that's you texting as you drive?  Of if God determines that the one beer you had with lunch was too much?  How much would you want God controlling what you can or cannot do?  And then, how would you feel or look at someone who displayed such control in your life?  Probably not with a great deal of love, but perhaps something that approached anger, or even hatred.

The next issue is determining what is actually bad.  Yes, someone dying in a drunk driving accident is a tragedy.  But we also have this tendency to think that what we do isn't really all that harmful, but that the other person took it the wrong way, or didn't understand what we meant.  In other words, we put the sense of what is bad and not bad into our own hands.

So do we expect God to abide by our sense of bad, or right and wrong?  If so, then He would have to do that for every other person in the world, and there will always be someone who thinks that they are entitled to something you deem to be precious.  But if we expect God to keep bad things from happening in this world, we would have to let God determine what is bad and not bad (right and wrong).  Otherwise, we find ourselves in the same situation that we are already in, with each person doing what they think is right.

Ultimately, this whole issue goes back to sin.  While bad things may happen even when everyone does what is "right", overall, we can usually trace each thing back to someone's sinfulness in the situation.  And with that being the case, we have the promise from God.  Sin has already been dealt with, in Jesus and the cross.  And there is coming a day when God will make everything new, and sin will not be a part of that.  At that time, our sense of right and wrong will be perfectly in line with God's (unlike now).  It won't be a control issue, but rather, a love issue, in that we will do everything which is good and right out of love for God and for one another.

Why no Miracles?

A couple of years ago, I read a book written by an atheist.  In this book, he claimed that the one thing that would convince him that there is a God would be if he were to see a miracle.  That got me to thinking a bit about this whole miracle thing.  I've heard a few other people say things like how their faith would be strengthened if they were to see a miracle, or something along those lines.

It seems that many people take the lack of miracles as a sign of God's absence.  Why didn't God heal my mother?  Why did God allow that car accident?  Why doesn't God do something about abortion, or cancer, or a whole host of other bad things in life?  Now, while I won't pretend that there is an easy answer to these questions, the one thing I want to look at a bit is the seeming absence of God in all of this.

To guide our thinking, let me ask this: if miracles were commonplace, would they still be miracles?  Miracles are, by definition, something outside of the ordinary.  So if they became ordinary, they would no longer be miracles.  Sure, we might not be able to explain them, but there are quite a few things in life that we can't explain. 

When we look at the record of miracles in the Bible, it reminds us that miracles do not always lead to faith.  Let's take the Israelites when they were freed from Egypt.  God had brought them out with 10 plagues, guided them to the sea, where He parted the water so they passed through on dry ground, and then crushed the Egyptian army behind them.  These people saw a great miracle.  Just a few weeks later, we find them complaining that God led them out into the wilderness to starve.  Hadn't they just seen great miracles?  Did they not believe that God would provide for them?  And then, when Moses went up on the mountain, what was the first thing they did?  Build an idol of gold!  And then, when Moses sent 12 men to spy out the land that had been promised to Abraham, what was their report?  "The people are too big and strong and powerful for us!"  Hadn't they just seen God bring them out of Egypt, and they had done nothing to contribute to their leaving?  It really seems that the miracles helped their faith, right?

Call me skeptical, but I honestly believe that God knows that our tendency to disbelieve miracles is one of the reasons why He doesn't do them more often.  And that, to me, is why we see Him as absent.  For some reason, we have this idea in us that God should actively show Himself all the time.  We don't want to rely on faith, we want to rely on what our eyes show us.  So when they don't show us that God is very obvious in His work around us, we think that He is absent.

Just to toss it out there, give some thought to it for a few minutes sometime.  What would you really do or think if a miracle happened in front of you?  Would you look for natural explanations?  Would you believe in God even more?  Would you say it's just one of those unexplainable kind of things?  What would you really think if you saw one?

When God seems absent

As I prepared to write out this post today, I took a moment to think about how I typically go about my day.  Granted, I have a somewhat unique position, but I still came to realize something that I think is probably shared among most people.  As I go about my day, I'll give thought to a few things about God, but I don't often look carefully for things that God may be doing, or regularly approach Him about particular situations, or even really give a lot of thought to what God might desire in whatever situations spring up.

To some degree, I think this is natural (in a sad way) for us as humans.  When Adam and Eve first disobeyed God, they seemed to suddenly be cut off from knowing what God's will would be in any given situation.  That left them on their own to figure things out.  So when we find ourselves in a situation where we wonder what would be the best thing to do, we don't have that intimate connection with God which would shine the light on it, and which we would joyfully follow.  Instead, we're left in the dark to try to figure out what might make sense, or what might work, or what we want most from the situation.

What does this mean for us in our day to day living?  It means that every decision and choice we make is one that we don't have God's direct influence and bearing on.  If we were perfect, and if we perfectly knew God's will, none of us would ever do anything that would bring harm to another.  But since we are sinful and imperfect, and since our connection with God is frayed and flawed because of sin, we can honestly say that we do not know what God may be doing in any given situation or circumstance.  That, then, causes us to feel as though God is absent, when the reality seems to be that He isn't absent, but that our connection to Him is broken.

While I know that many would say that the cure to this is to be constant in prayer and in the study of God's Word, I have started to think that it may actually mean that we fall back onto God's grace even more.  If we are uncertain about what God is doing or may intend in any given situation, we proceed based upon what we know and believe about God, knowing that we will not do it perfectly, but that our imperfection and sin is covered by the blood of Jesus and smothered by God's grace.  That means that, no matter what I may end up doing, I'm still in God's grace.  It may be the "right" or "wrong" thing to do, but it doesn't take me from the grace of God which is mine in Christ Jesus.