People of God

On the eve of election day in America, it's easy to notice how the rhetoric of politics has circled back around strongly to theology. Thousands upon thousands of faithful Americans are posting, sharing, tweeting, snapping, etc. about America's great need to turn back to God, to redeem herself as a Christian nation and seek again His face.

And that all sounds well and good, except for one tiny detail: America is not a Christian nation, and she never has been.

That's going to sting some persons in the face. Hard. But it's the historical truth.

When the Bible talks about nations being either God's or not God's, it's not talking about nations as we know them today. Rather, in Biblical terms, nations are always groups of people, not political structures. They are generations of families, not governments. And there has only ever been one "Christian" nation - the nation that Christ came from. Israel. This is the only nation that can ever claim to have been, or to be, God's. (And note, please, that when we speak of Israel in these terms, we are not speaking of the geographical region known as Israel; we are speaking of the blood-line descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.) 

Apart from Israel, no other nation ever has been or ever will be "Christian." (And of course, we are using the term "Christian" a bit loosely here to indicate overall possession by the God of the Bible in general, recognizing that much of Israel's history comes pre-Christ and therefore cannot be "Christian" in the same sense that we recognize the term today, although as the nation bearing Christ, they are "Christian" indeed.)

Standing in solidarity with the Biblical witness regarding nations, the testimony of America's founding fathers also clearly illustrates that she never was a Christian nation and wasn't meant to be. There is nothing in any of the documentation, any of the writings, any of the treaties, any of the constitutions to suggest otherwise. Indeed, what the founding fathers consistently say that their men must draw on their faith in and knowledge of God in order to govern their country. 

America must be a nation of Christians.

That was their idea. That was their vision. They were running away from an England where the church had become the state and had dictated not only their rule, but their religion. They were running away from a so-called "Christian" state that wasn't working for them, and they were seeking a place where they could worship freely and use their God-given hearts to live out community in a way that affirmed both God and government, rather than dominating it.

Four years ago, I wrote about the American story - how America was never meant to be a church and ought not to be. That is still true. The government is not meant to do, and cannot do, the things that the church can do, and should be doing. 

But as the rhetoric continues to intensify, again, on the eve of the election, I find myself drawn once again to step into the mess and speak a bit of truth. It may be true that America has fallen away from her ideals, that she is on this dangerous path toward being unrecognizable. But if the ache in your heart is for her to find her footing, it starts not with her, but with you. Our greatest need is not for Christians in the White House or in the state house or in the court house, but for Christians in our houses. If we want America to find herself, we must stop asking her to be something she never was - a Christian nation - and instead ache for her to be what she was intended to be - a nation of Christians. 

It doesn't much matter who you vote for tomorrow, if you're in America. What matters most is who you pray to today. If you're on your knees, crying out to the God of Heaven and earth, interceding for your country and for your community, letting your faith in and knowledge of God guide you in all that you do, then this is the better thing. 

Too many Marthas at the ballot boxes trying to figure out how to get things all squared away; not enough Marys in their family rooms, choosing the better thing.

Choose the better thing. 

(Although, by all means, vote tomorrow. We are called to engage this world, not shy away from it. Your vote, your voice, does matter. Just keep things in perspective, eh? It's just a politician.) 

The Object of Our Desire

This morning, I was reading a bit of Tozer, and he posed this thought: "The first and greatest commandment is to love God with every power of our entire being. Where love like that exists there can be no place for a second object. If we love God as much as we should, surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us to obtain."

The theologian makes a good point, and yet, are we not all guilty of this very thing?

Our most common prayer is frequently, "Give me." Not the holy things of God do we seek, but the comforts of the earth. Not more of Him, but more of this....whatever this happens to be. Yet seldom do we realize that the very things for which we pray, we already possess in fullest measure, just in our being able to ask for them.

We pray for healing, to the One who has already healed us. It's already ours. Our bodies may continue to struggle. Disease may take its course. But we pray to the Healer, begging for mercy, although our healing itself is already assured. There is coming a day when there will be no weakness, no sickness, no lameness. That much, we know. But we pray for healing anyway, as though it is a gift of God reserved only for the few.

We pray for security, to the One who holds us in the very palm of His hand. All around us, things fall apart. Seasons change. Doors open and close. And we pray, fervently, that we would just have something stable to hold onto. Yet the only unchanging One in all the universe already holds us. In His hand, there is no uncertainty. But we pray for surety, for security, anyway, as though it is rare and difficult to find.

We pray for second chances, to the One who comes running to meet us on the horizon. We pray for wealth, to the One who paves streets with God. We pray for opportunity, to the One who throws open the windows of Heaven for us. 

We pray for all of these things, not realizing that we already have them in their fullest measures, in the very One to whom we pray. 

And that is the wicked deception of the world. This world has convinced us of the emptiness of our lives, even in the presence of God, and therefore, has convinced us of the emptiness of our God. How often do we stop and consider the great fullness of His glory? How often do we remember that all that we could ask or imagine, God fully is and even more? 

The discomforts of this world have somehow convinced us that God is, but chooses not to be. He is Healer, sure, but He does not heal us. He is security, yes, but He does not shield us. He is Father, yes, but He does not claim us. He is peace, yes, but He quarrels with us. He is wealth, absolutely, but He is not generous. He is the divine yes, of course, but His silence is deafening.

Listen, and hear, when I say that this is deception. This is the lie. It is not that God is and chooses not to be; the trouble is that God is, and we choose Him not. 

God is, and we choose Him only as a means to be. We choose Him only as a stepping stone between here and there, between this and that. We choose Him as but one way of obtaining what we truly want - something beyond Him that seems out of our own reach. 

Which brings us back to Tozer's musing and the question we must honestly ask ourselves: what second object could there possibly be beyond God that He might help us obtain, if only we knew what we fully had in Him? 

The God I Know

The good news for those of us who struggle with the call of God in our lives is that although it seems to require either some amazing feat of imagination or some incredible strength of will, responding in faith to God's leading requires truly nothing more than faith and love. 

It doesn't matter if I can imagine what God says He's up to. It doesn't matter if I can see it. It would be nice, of course, and there is a certain part of me that is keenly aware of how often God says, "They have eyes, but they cannot see." And then I find myself crying out, "Lord, I have eyes! Let me see!" But the truth is that I don't really need to see. I don't really need to be able to fathom.

Because I already know.

I know the character of the God who calls me. I know His faithfulness. I know, without a doubt, that I can trust Him. If I can only bring to mind all of the things in which I am sure about my God, then my limited imagination does not, and cannot, stand in the way of my following Him.

And if I remember all of the reasons I have for following Him, all of the assurance I have in trusting Him (faith), then my reluctant will is also not a problem. However much I may not want to do the thing that God has called me to do, I profoundly want (read: will) to obey God. The passion of the will of faith supersedes the hesitations of my will to my own desire. 

So the response of the faithful must be an absolute confident assurance in the character, nature, and promise of God. Then, all these little human things that we fight so strongly against just don't matter any more. They don't stand in the way of our doing a faithful thing.

Abraham heard God's call to be a father of many nations. He laughed, yes, but then he had a son anyway. (And they named him, "he laughs.") So when God then calls Abraham to sacrifice that son, to climb Mount Moriah, to continue journeying into other lands - all things which may be against Abraham's will - then all Abraham has to do is trust in the character, the nature, and the promise of this God who has already proved faithful. He doesn't have to love where he's going, but if he loves God, he'll go. And who else has made such a promise to Abraham, let alone delivered on it? 

Moses heard God's call to be a leader of the people. He couldn't see it. But he'd already spent enough years in the wilderness, his heart aching for his people, worshiping the God he'd kept in secret as a kid in a king's palace. He had a foundational understanding of this God who called him, and all of those holy encounters they'd already had were enough to convince Moses that this God was the real deal. And if God is the real deal, then there must be some real reason He's asking you to do what He's asking you to do. So Moses leads the people, not because he's sure of himself, but because he's sure of his God.

Noah was a righteous man; this is well-documented. A righteous man has a deep and rich relationship with a righteous God. He has to. And the very fact that this God has noticed Noah's righteousness and chosen him as a potential remnant of the entire race of humanity only further confirms Noah's sense of God - He does notice, He does care, all this hard righteousness that Noah has invested his life in in a tough place does mean something. And if it all really means something, if it does truly matter, then there's something legitimate about this God. There's something worthy of Him. If God really is paying enough attention to know what one man does, then this one man can trust the investment that this God is making in him. Therefore, if this God wants a boat, then let's build a boat. If this God has made the investment in men, then let men make the investment in this God, knowing that the return is right there. 

Jonah was a prophet. He had spoken for God on numerous occasions. He had seen first-hand how God's truth rains down on His people. He knew the way that the word of God came to him, and he knew how that very same word was fulfilled. We don't know any of the other scenes of Jonah's story, but we know this is generally true of the prophets. (And fun fact: the book of Jonah begins with a Hebrew word that means "and," which means that we are told right away that we're not getting a comprehensive story of Jonah, but only one scene of him.) I think God had a special obligation to the prophets to show His faithfulness. After all, if you're going to ask someone to speak powerful words for you, they have to know that you're going to stand behind them. Don't they? So we can only assume that Nineveh was not Jonah's first rodeo. And even if it was, that lingering stench of fish vomit ought to be enough to remind him of God's faithfulness. So he may not want to go to Nineveh, but if he knows that God is powerful, and if he trusts in this, then he'll go. He'll go because he knows that God is going, too.

At any given moment, we are not required to believe in ourselves. We are not required to believe in our journeys. We are not required to believe in our stories. All we are ever required to believe in is our God. If we know who He is, if we trust in His character, if we know His nature, then everything else is naught. Our limited imaginations and our hesitant wills will not, and cannot, hold us back. 

So the question that may be most pressing in our lives may not be what God calls us to be or what God calls us to do, but who this God is who calls us at all. If we can answer that with any reasonable confidence, then we'll go. We'll go because we know the One who asks us to go. 

And that's enough. 

Hesitations

As we struggle in our limited imaginations to fathom the calling of God on our lives, our reactions tend to be all over the place. But we can take great comfort in knowing that even in our hesitations, we are not alone.

Abraham, called to be a father of many nations, shared the promise with his wife. The aging couple shared a good laugh over that one, and then later came to be the mother and father of a child whose name means, "he laughs." Called to leave his homeland and go somewhere new, Abraham packed up his family and left. But he went without a great deal of confidence. He lied his way through the territories, aware more of the perils on the path than on the protection of the promise. And when called to take his son to Mount Moriah, here, he went, as well, although he kept quiet about the whole thing. He didn't tell his wife, his son, his servants, or even a single rock or tree what was going on. The story of Abraham is one almost of false bravado - only he knows the truth about his journey. Only he knows how uncertain he is. He declares neither confidence nor concern, but it's written all over his face. 

Moses, on the other hand, is quite vocal about his concerns. And not just in the beginning. Throughout his journey down God's path, we repeatedly see him express his hesitations. We repeatedly see him asking for assurance. Called to be the leader of his people, Moses continues to ask for signs of God's favor, not only for himself but in order to prove himself. God gives him unprecedented access to the presence of the Lord Himself, as well as sign after miraculous sign that God is with him. Called to actually lead his people, Moses protests. His limited imagination keeps him from seeing how things could be and locks his eyes on the way things are. He begs God to change His mind. He pleads for there to be some other way. And in the end, he is given a helper, who then becomes the priest of his people. What's interesting is that Moses is called to be the first great leader of the nation of Israel, but he is not counted as among their kings; he is not counted as among their judges; he is not counted as among their priests (the priests trace their lineage back to Aaron, not Moses); he is not counted as among their fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). It has to make you wonder a little bit if it was not the way that Moses' insecurities got the best of him that ends with him being almost an obscure figure in Israel's community history. 

Jonah, in contrast to Abraham's false bravado, took on almost an arrogant attitude at God's call on his life to be a prophet. It's not a far stretch at all to think of Jonah being prideful in his position, declaring, I am the man of God. That's right. It's me. I'm the prophet. Yet, called to go to Nineveh, he boards a boat for Tarshish. For those of you not brushed up on your Old Testament geography, Tarshish is in the other direction. It's the opposite way. It's not a wicked city, per se, although it's not a godly one. It's a place rife with opportunity, so why would Jonah go to Nineveh, a place that's barely got a chance? 

Noah is another quiet kind of figure. He is humbled, I think, by God's call to be a remnant. His righteousness does not give him reason to boast, like Jonah's prophetic gift did. He doesn't laugh, the way that Abraham did. He doesn't demand that God confirm and re-confirm this calling on his life. He just...goes with it. Called to build a giant boat and gather thousands of animals to himself, he doesn't make a big deal of it. He becomes a public spectacle, but we never see him play into that at all. He keeps his head down and his eyes open, his hands dirty and his heart sober. He does the work that God has set before him, and it truly is a labor of love - for his God, who has called him to it, and for his family, who he takes with him into the storm. 

There are so many diverse reactions to the call of God on our lives, both God's call to be and to do. In fact, I don't think there are two characters in all our Scripture who have the same reaction, and I don't think there are two characters in God's developing story who do, either. But I do think we can see some of ourselves in these four.

I think we can see where, in response to God's call to be, it's easy for us to laugh. It's easy for us to demand signs and confirmations. It's easy for us to become prideful and arrogant. It's easy for us to be humbled by it all. And I think we can see where, in response to God's call to do, it's easy for us to develop a false bravado, while scheming our way through. It's easy for us to demand help, to beg for it, even. It's easy for us to board a ship in a completely different direction. It's easy for us to become a public spectacle. 

But no matter how it is that we respond to the call of God in our lives, here is what we cannot lose sight of: God is infinitely more faithful than we are. Even in our laughter, our insecurity, our pride, or our humility, God continues to make us the very thing He intends to make us. Abraham became the father; Moses, the leader; Jonah, the prophet; Noah, the remnant. Even in our false bravado, our joint commission, our detour, or our headlines, God guides us to do the things He intends us to do. Abraham made the journey to a new land; Moses led the Hebrews to the Promised Land; Jonah preached a message of repentance that was heard by Nineveh; Noah sailed that little ship to dry land. 

So God is up to something. He really is. He's really doing it. And we may have our hesitations, but He doesn't. He is far more confident in us than we are in Him, and whatever He's given us to do, we shall do. Whatever He's created us to be, we shall be. 

The only question, then, is how will our stories tell these stories? How will these scenes play out? What will be the testimony of our lives in response to the call of God? 

Human Beings

As we continue to look at the idea that men are often called against their will (or not, as I have argued), the question must be asked: to what are men being called at all?

Put another way: are we human beings or human doings?

We read across the surface of the stories of so many of these men who have shaped the stories of our faith, and it is easy for us to say they were called against their will. Yet, the only thing we really see them responding to in these readings is a call to do, not a call to be. If we take a step back into the realm of being called to be, we see again that what we encounter is not a clash of wills, but a failure of imagination. 

Take Jonah. Jonah was called to deliver a message of truth to the wicked city of Nineveh. What's interesting about Jonah is that he is already called a prophet, even before going to Nineveh or not, and this is a title that he does not protest. So the calling on Jonah's life is to be a prophet, and he is not unwilling to do this. He may struggle to envision exactly what that looks like, but he never says, "You know what? I don't want to be a prophet." He only says, "I do not want to go to Nineveh." So in terms of being, Jonah suffers a crisis of imagination. only in terms of doing does he encounter a clash of wills.

Abraham has the same story. He's not unwilling to be the father of many nations, although he can't imagine, at his old age, how that is even going to be possible. A father of many nations is what God has called him to be. But God has also called him to do something - to move, and at another point, to sacrifice his son. These are harder choices. These go against his will, to different degrees. Again, we see a crisis of imagination in response to God's call to be and a clash of wills in response to God's call to do.

Moses has a history of fighting for his people. He's already been spotted protecting and avenging a fellow Hebrew who was under attack. So it's likely that when God told him that he would become a leader for his people, Moses's only protest might be that he just couldn't see it. His imagination couldn't fathom how he could go from the place where he was to the place where God had called him. It's only in the specific call to do something - to go to Pharaoh - that we see Moses say, "Wait a minute. I don't think that's such a good idea." In the call to be, a crisis of imagination; in the call to do, a clash of wills. 

Nor do I think that Noah would have rejected the idea that he and his family be the righteous remnant of the entire human race. Although I can clearly imagine how he might have struggled, looking in the mirror, to imagine himself worthy. But when it comes to boat-building....

Do you see how this keeps playing out over and over again? God calls His people first to be human beings - to be something. To be something distinctive, one thing as opposed to all other things: a prophet, a father, a leader, a remnant. Although we may struggle to see how these things are possible, we do not reject the idea completely or find that it goes against our own will. In general, most of us are more than willing to be what it is that God desires us to be. It fits with our created design, so of course, it's okay by us.

But then God calls His human beings to become human doings - to do something in particular. It is here where we experience a conflict of will. Many times, what God asks us to do is the last thing we want to be doing, the last road we'd take for ourselves. And we have many ways of responding to that second call.

We'll look at some of that tomorrow.