Continuing from A Look Back – Part III

From birthday to birthday my life has been an ongoing conversation with God…or so it seems to me. The God I know is not the one I was taught of at university. The God I have heard of in church has been described as a vindictively cruel and righteous tyrant. We are his ant farm slowly and methodically digging our tunnels….our graves. Over years of time I watched as the charlatans of organized religion redefined him as more charitable, kind, and forgiving. The lesson now seems to be to submit…obey…and be blessed by a kindly king. Whereas before the lesson seemed to be submit and obey…or else. Admittedly it’s all true…but it is all a lie. God doesn’t change. From time to time he doesn’t redefine himself in an effort to make himself more palatable or culturally relevant to the masses. It seems to me that people in the business of religion do that to maintain their religious business model. God doesn’t change. He called for and succeeded in the genocide of entire people groups. On the other hand, he sacrificed himself on the cross to rescue…to redeem people who seem to be just like the ones he previously exterminated. That being said I don’t trust people to teach or guide me as it pertains to him. At best I believe that such people mean well…but that’s it. The complexity of who or what he is cannot be taught or explained by well-intentioned do-gooders in forty-five minute blocks of time two or three times a week. I would rather sit at a roadside bar and listen to someone explain to me in the foulest of terms why they despise the almighty, than to be taught by someone whose life and experience doesn’t extend beyond the parking lot of their church. I guess it’s fair to ask then, “how do I learn of one whose complexity is beyond the understanding of…anyone?” For me the answers are not found sitting on a pew in a church house hoping that a professional religious business person tosses out some nugget of truth for me to marvel at. I find my answers elsewhere…the few answers that I’ve gotten. I personally gain answers or insight from an elusive God who is very stingy about explaining why. A long time ago I learned that I rarely asked the right questions. When I got an answer…if I got one…I gained more insight about myself than anything else. None of such times ever happened at church. They all happened at home…where I live. I think it’s fair to say that I have had more clarifying encounters with God while I pushed or rode on a lawnmower than I ever had in a church building. I really don’t approve of my distaste or disapproval of most things relating to church. It’s just how I feel. I think church should be something other than what it is. What? I don’t know. The one redeeming quality of the entire modern church enterprise is a handful of people I know who go there. There are a few who know me beneath the surface..the good and the bad…yet they love me. They know the story my wife and I share yet we are still acceptable to them…we were not left behind.

In an effort to self-edit while maintaining as high a level of honesty as possible, my negative feelings about “church” are my own and just my opinion. I suppose that it’s possible for many (maybe most) people to frequently and actively participate in whatever goes on there and thrive. Over some years my wife and I have perhaps narrowed down what my problem is. Our life experience is radically different from anyone we know there…or anywhere for that matter. Their lives seem so small…so predictable. But we went a different way…a less traveled way and have lived a big…big life together. Together we did impossible things…lived through impossible circumstances. We…Walked… On…Water. All the while most our church community sat in the safety of their tiny boat. Never daring to believe that God is…really is. I used to think that they deserted us…left us behind on the water. What I have come to realize is that my wife and I deserted them. The God we were chasing was never in the boat. He was on the water.

There’s a story about the apostle Peter and the time he got out of the boat to meet Jesus on the water. Peter was quickly overcome by the circumstances around him and began to sink. Jesus lifted him from the water and congratulated him for his effort…nice try, he did better than his pals in the boat. I wonder how the story would be different if Peter went to meet Jesus with his wife. Together I don’t think they would have floundered as they went to meet Jesus on the water. They would have made it…together. Then what? My experience…my limited knowledge of God…tells me that there was no way he would send them back to the boat. He would have sent them somewhere else. He would have sent them to a fate…a destiny that would have been the best and the worst thing either of them could have imagined. They would have hated him…loved him. Never…never would they have regretted leaving the safety of the boat. I have learned and I have been changed into someone or something else. I have learned that the worst of times on the water as I shook my defiant fist in the face of God were far better than any time I experienced in the boat. Why? I was…my wife and I were…where God was…where he is. None of this is to suggest or recommend that anyone who happens upon these lines do what I did. I am not inviting anyone to join me on the water. It is cold here…it is deep here…it will cost everything to remain here and what isn’t paid will be taken. Over the years other couples have approached my wife and I about making similar choices as we did as it concerns how we followed God. We have never recommended or encouraged anyone to do such. In fact, the opposite is true. I think we have been successful. I can only remember two couples who ever followed through. They asked the questions. We gave the answers and most abandoned the idea. I have a remarkable track record for discouraging others to follow God like I did. I wonder now if such people were really seeking God through the experiences or teachings of others…vicariously.

What they wanted to know was if all the misery was worth it in the end. I expect it will be because the end is not yet. Up to this point at least to me it hasn’t been worth it in my microscopic economy of how I perceive worth and value. On the other hand, it may one day become worth it when the end truly arrives.