God Alone

The world has never had a shortage of gods - of beings, ideas, creatures, things, stories, whatever that men have worshiped. That men have believed have had the power to shape our mortal lives in meaningful ways and therefore, require some kind of deference. 

But only the Lord has ever inspired any kind of true devotion. 

The gods of the world, they are transactional gods. Tit-for-tat. You do this, your god does that. Or they are dominant gods, using men as pawns in their cosmic battles. Or they are demanding gods, requiring certain behavior from their followers. 

And the exchange rate isn't great. 

If you please your god, you might get something you want. Or you might get something your god wants to give you. Or you might help your god to victory in the cosmic battle of the gods. You might escape this world. You might be rewarded richly with virgins and ice cream. You might get a nice pat on the back. 

Only the Lord stretches out His arms and welcomes you home. 

Only God promises love. Only God promises redemption. Only God promises restoration. Only God has something in mind that is truly good for you and not just a satisfaction of some fleshly desire. 

Only God inspires you to dream bigger than your life. 

Only God inspires you to dream bigger for your life.

It doesn't take a lot to understand this. Look at the stories of the other so-called gods. Look at what they promise. Look at what it takes to get there. You have to climb mountains and scale tall buildings and be perfect and achieve on your own. 

Only God crossed the heavens and came to earth to be with you, and only God promises that He has a place for you. Not for all the people like you. Not for everyone who earns it. Not for whoever figures it all out. 

But for whosoever will. All who will come. 

Matthew had it right: God, our God, the Lord is unlike any other (14:2). 

And I am so glad He is. 

God of Persons

What kind of God do you want? 

It's an important question. When we go back to some of the gods of the ancient peoples (think: Greece, Egypt, etc.), we have all kinds of myth stories about these gods warring it out in the heavens and on ancient mountains and whatever. The primary function of gods was to fight among each other for dominance and, if they had a little time left over, offer benevolence to mere mortals who were stuck in this physical world. 

For example, if you wanted to have a child or harvest an abundant crop, you had to appease the goddess of fertility, who would probably give you good favor if you got it just right, but her actual life was spent dating the god of good cheeses and arguing with the goddess of donkeys. 

These are the gods that men worshiped. 

And it's tempting to want to do that with our God. We understand the realities of spiritual dimensions in our world, and we have some kind of understanding of Satan - of God's enemy. Of the "ruler of this world." Of the cause of all evil. Of the Deceiver. Whatever you want to say about the very real spiritual battle that we're all caught up in. 

And what we want is a God, a Lord, our Lord who puts the devil in his place and comes out victorious. We want to think about a God who is the God of all Gods, who exerts His dominance in the pantheon of the heavens, who keeps showing that He is the Lord. And if this is the God that we want, then our God has to defeat Satan at every turn. 

That's what we want. 

But that's not what God is interested in. 

We get a glimpse of spiritual warfare nowhere more clearly than in the Gospels, than when Jesus (the Son of God) is walking this earth, declaring the Kingdom, and putting demons in their place. Except that for Jesus, it's not about putting demons in their place at all. 

Jesus is never like, "Hey guys, watch this. I'm more powerful than the demons." Jesus never draws attention to the spiritual battle. Jesus never lets the humans get distracted by the spiritual realm. Yes, there are demons. Yes, they are real. Yes, God is bigger than them. 

But God is a healer of persons, not a dominator of demons (Matthew 12:22). So every time we see Him encountering the forces of darkness, the emphasis is on the human being He is setting free. The emphasis is on the boy who isn't going to have seizures any more. The emphasis is on the naked man fully clothed and in his right mind. The emphasis is on the human being created in the image of God who is set free. 

Demons be damned. 

Jesus came to love us. God came to demonstrate His love for us. Not to show us how big He is on the mountains or in the pantheon or whatever other fantastical stories we want to make up about the place where the gods live. 

Our God lives among us, on the same dusty, dirty streets that we do. And when He looks at us and sees us troubled by a lesser being, He's not looking at that lesser being; He's looking at His beloved. At us. 

Because that's where God shows us who He is. In our real lives...the very lives He came to redeem. 

Arguing About Truth

This world we're living in isn't black and white...but we'd like to make it that way. 

We want there to be a good and a bad, a right and a wrong, a sacred and a profane, a holy and an evil, a friend and an enemy. We want there to be one thing we can all agree on and, in doing so, something we all agree on on the other side of it, too. 

Yet, it seems that no matter what happens in the world, we always find a way to pick a fight about it. We always find a way to uncover some layer of the onion that hasn't made enough folks cry yet, then pick and pick and pick at it until we've missed the forest for the trees and have started arguing about the smallest little things...ignoring the big things that we agree on. 

For example, a local woman was murdered by her abusive husband. And on the surface, we have tremendous agreement about this - he was wrong. He should be held accountable. This is a tragedy. How could something like this happen? 

But it didn't take long for the arguments to start coming out. There are those who think he should be fed through a wood chipper right away; others don't believe in capital punishment; still others want him to receive counseling. There were arguments come out about domestic violence - she should have left sooner; she did everything right; the court system failed her; law enforcement should have done better; it's her own fault for staying as long as she did. 

And all of a sudden, an entire community who agrees on the most fundamental truth about this story is left arguing about all the little nuances of it and forgetting that at our very core, we agree with each other. 

You walk away from a comment section like this shaking your head and wondering how there are so many idiots in the world who "just don't get it." Whatever "it" is for you. 

What is actually happening is that we've lost our ability to live in tension. We've lost our ability to have different perspectives and priorities and truths out there. 

We say that we are the most "tolerant" generation for truth. Hey - what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me and who am I to judge?

But the real truth of the matter is that this has only convinced all of us that there is only actually one truth - ours - and that anyone who doesn't agree with our truth is wrong. If our truth, our version of truth, our understanding and perspective and interpretation is the only one that matters to our lives, then it is the only one that matters. We have become completely intolerant in our tolerance because as much as we are told that all things are valid, we are also told that our thing is the only thing valid for us and any disagreement with us is disrespect. 

So here we are, arguing about what is most true or best true or perfectly true about a man with a history of domestic abuse who shot and killed the mother of his children when the truth is that no one thinks this is okay. 

It's amazing, right? Here we all are on the same side of history, still disagreeing with each other because it's what we've been taught to do - argue. 

But what if we didn't? 

God Whispers

I've seen enough suspense shows and psychological thrillers to think that I can say with absolute confidence...don't whisper to me in the dark. Ever. 

At the same time, I have whispered enough things to those I love in the dark to know that sometimes, these are the things I most need to hear. (Well, to be sure, I can only say that they are the things I most need to say, but when I say them, it is because I think someone I love needs to hear them.)

Most often, the words that I whisper in the dark are...I love you.

I love you, when the doctor is moments away from coming back in the room. I love you, when the morphine pump cranks up another level. I love you, when the house is in a pile of rubble. I love you, when the eviction notice is on the door. I love you, when the bank account is overdrawn. I love you, when the heartbeat is gone. I love you, when the vet is holding the syringe. I love you...I love you...I love you.

Some of us spend our lives thinking about the darkness, preparing for it. Maybe you have a list of things you think you want to say when the time comes. Maybe you have a whole checklist in your mind of what those dark times are going to look like if - when - they come your way. Maybe you have a contingency plan and a plan for a contingency on that. Maybe you have a carefully crafted letter that you're just waiting on the right moment to read. Maybe you think, against all hopes, that you're ready for the darkness if it finds you. 

But I'm telling you - when those moments find you, when this broken life finds you, when darkness falls, the only words I've ever found that truly mattered, the only ones I've ever wanted to say, the only ones I've ever wanted anyone else to know were I love you. 

Jesus told His followers that what God whispers to us in the dark, we are to shout in the light (Matthew 10:27). 

When we hear those words, we start to think about some kind of amazing prophetic message. Some special nugget of wisdom God is going to give us at just the right time. Some amazing word of grace that's going to change the whole world around us. It's so amazing that we can't even imagine what it is, but we know that when we hear it, we'll know it's the word. 

But I think in the darkness, in our darkest days, in our hardest times, in our most trying tests, the words God has for us are the same ones we have for each other: I love you. I think that's what He whispers. 

It's what He's whispered to me. At the moments that I have most needed to hear from God, those are the words He's chosen. And...they're enough. And...they're perfect. And...they're exactly what we think they're going to be. 

They're an amazing prophetic message, a deep, powerful truth that we need to hear. They are a special nugget of wisdom at just the right time, for what changes our perspective on the world more than knowing we are loved by God? They are amazing words of grace that change everything. These words truly change everything. 

And we should shout them in the light. 

Because as much as we've needed to hear them, so, too, does the world. 

When the darkness comes, God whispers in our ear...I love you.... 

And He does. 

So shout that in the light. I am loved by God. 

It makes all the difference. 

God of Secrets

Jesus told the crowds gathered on the hillside that God sees what is done in secret. Actually, He told them three times...in the same sermon (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). 

When He said this, He was talking about things like prayer and generosity. Things the Pharisees did in very public places so that everyone would know how holy they are. The point of His statement was that true holiness isn't defined by the things you do where other humans can see you or by how much recognition you get for your prayer or sacrifice or whatever; true holiness is defined by what God sees when He looks at you, and He's not looking at you standing in the streets, shouting. 

(He is, but He's not...you know what I mean.) 

Yet, when many of us think about these verses, about Jesus's words that God sees what you do in secret, what we think of most immediately is our own failures. Our quiet little moments of not getting it right. The little things we mutter under our breath. Our "secret" sins that we wouldn't want anyone else to know about. The times we're afraid that someone might come unexpectedly walking in on us, and then suddenly, we remember that God already sees what we're doing. 

Yikes. 

But that's not what Jesus said. 

Jesus said that God hears your prayers that are said in secret and sees your generosity that is done in quiet. Which means that God's not looking for your mess-ups; He's looking for the little bits of good that you're putting out into the world without anyone noticing it. He's looking for the little acts of faithfulness that you engage in when no one's watching. He's looking for the kind of relationship you have with Him when it's not being judged by anyone else. 

He already knows your sin. That's why He sent Jesus in the first place. That's why His Son was here on earth to say those words on that hillside two thousand years ago. Because God already knew you were a sinner. 

But if you actually look at it, Jesus spends very little of His time talking about your sin and a great big lot of His time talking about God's Kingdom. He spends more time talking about healing and forgiveness than condemnation. He invested His short few years here on earth with us in telling and showing us what real faithfulness looks like...and faithfulness is very different than sinlessness (which, by the way, you're never going to achieve). 

He spent His time talking about what He came to do - being holy. Being faithful. Being righteous. 

Those are the secret things He's looking for. 

Not some sin He already knows about. That's just the serpent and the fig leaves and the bush all over again. 

But we put that narrative to bed a long time ago. The narrative we have now is the manger, the cross, and the tomb. And that's far, far better. 

So go be righteous. Go do quiet little things. Go pray where only God can hear you, give where only God can see, love Him in ways only God knows you're loving Him. For this pleases your Father in Heaven, who treasures every one of these little things done in secret and rewards you for them.