Reality Rules

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. -- James 4:8

I happened to pick up Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest this morning and read the entry for today. It's based on James 4:8 and is call "The Authority of Reality", so I am riffing on that. 

Faith is acting on what you know to be true, what you know to be real.  I have a spare tire on my truck and a patch kit I carry on my bikes because punctures and road hazards are real.  We stop at stop signs, drive on the right side of the road, stay out of certain parts of town after dark, pay our taxes, watch what we eat, and all the rest because of what we believe to be real.  For me, I know, it is difficult to believe in anything other than the material world I see and experience on a daily basis.  I am, after all, a native Missourian.  "Believe half of what you see [perspective] and none of what you hear [opinion]" was drilled into me from birth.

My mother used to check the almanac for the various moon signs or whatever they are.  By the signs, you are told to plant potatoes and other root crops in "the dark of the moon".  My father's response?  "I always thought they do better if you plant them in the ground."  My favorite, though, was castrating calves.  Dad didn't have any fancy equipment, just a classic stockman pocketknife with a scary sharp spey blade, and he usually kept some pine tar in the truck.  We'd see a new calf, determine it was a bull, catch it, and cut it.  In the summer, if we had it available, we'd smear some tar around the cut to keep away the flies.  Back at the house, Mom might wonder if the calf would be all right as the sign was in not in the feet that day.  Dad again, "The sign is in the knife."

Since then I have experienced things that were inexplicable in a material sense, usually having to do with the timing of events -- things happening or coming together at just the right time to benefit me.  I have been in the right place at the right time on multiple occasions.  I have been blessed over and over, and I have come to believe that God is Good, all the time.  Have I experienced upheavals and tragedies?  Have I seen bad things happen to good people?  Have I been taken aback by the utter stupidity and the malice of people?  I have certainly, especially that last one. 

Malicious people are acting on what they believe to be true, on what they believe is real.  Perhaps they are philosophical atheists or practical atheists who believe we are alone in a purely material world with no one to answer to except our fellow humans.  Perhaps they believe in some kind of vindictive god, or they are deeply religious pharisees who think they are better than other people.  I don't know, but I pity them.  However, if they come to my house with their evil, the sign might be in the Glock. 

I believe Jesus, the Son of God.  I believe He described the real world perfectly and completely, that He is Truth incarnate.  I believe He is with me, that, now and then, He has worked through me, that He has guided my steps even when I had no idea what was going on.  By all rights, I should have been dead forty-nine years ago and probably more times than I know since, but here I am, and I am going to do my best to act on what I believe.  The just shall live by faith.  The just do it.

Hidden in Christ

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. -- Matthew 7:18

Christian fruit, whether in the form of good words, deeds, lifestyle, or character, is the visible manifestation.  The life of the vine, the bramble, the apple tree, or the walnut is hidden from us.  All we can see is what is produced, and it is right for us to judge the nature of that life based on the fruit, or the lack thereof, we find. 

The love of Christ is readily available and freely offered to each and every one of us.  Many of us, though, find it disturbing and even offensive (Romans 9:33, Galatians 5:11) that the love of God is given only in and through the Cross.  We seem to be troubled by the idea that we cannot access God on our own terms.  Those who built the tower of Babel said, [L]et us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar (Genesis 11:3).  Too many times the bricks have been the bodies of our fellowmen and the mortar their blood.  Even so, our towers fall.

Our human philosophies and systems, even religion can be like the leaves on the fig tree Jesus cursed (Mark 11:14).  We are often drawn to those endeavors that look and sound appealing to the natural man, that have the appearance of life and wholeness and fruitfulness.  We look at the cruelty of the tree upon which the Lord was crucified, and we see only death.  Yet that is the Tree of Life.  Its fruit is pure and sweet and true and gives us everlasting life.  Here it is that we receive God’s love, and here it is that we begin to live in and by that love. 

In Christ we abide, and we cannot keep ourselves from being fruitful.  Not to say that we can’t get back in the flesh but there is really no reason for it.  We may get so caught up in fear and worry and one thing and another that we forget who we are and our communion with the Lord.  He may help us to remember.  But this we know is always true:  Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

Revelation Reflects

Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah -- Psalm 24:6

[I]t is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he [has] previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also —He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced. For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white. – John Calvin, Institutes, Book One, Chapter 1

It's a little known fact among Star Wars insiders that Yoda learned English from reading a translation of The Institutes of the Christian Religion:  Convinced, however, we are not.

We will never know ourselves until we know God.  We are not going to find the answer to who we are and why we are here by following the crowd.  Our parents may not be able to help us.  Education seems unlikely to enlighten us.  Sometimes, though, God does put someone in authority over us – father, mother, a teacher, coach, scout leader, or a pastor – to give us a word and direction from Him.  We would probably see it more if we were more open to the idea of the one-story universe, as expressed so well by Father Stephen.   

The mistake I have often made – and it’s not that I made it more early in my walk, I’m still doing it – is to seek the Lord primarily through the written revelation of the Bible.  For me, personally, studying the Bible is something I depend on to keep me more in tune -- poor instrument that I am.  While reading the Bible may be the best way for a lot of us to seek and to know Christ, it's not the only way to see Him. 

Prayer is another vital discipline in our search.  Some of our time in prayer should be given over to listening rather than speaking.  I sometimes get the feeling that God would like for me to shut up long enough for Him to answer one or two of my many questions, complaints and rants. 

We might expect to hear from the Lord in the priest’s homily or the teacher’s lesson, but we might be more surprised to find Him in a poem, a piece of music, a work of art, a scene in a movie, a science fiction novel, or some vista of nature.  My cousin’s late wife loved going to the Grand Canyon.  For her -- a simple, devout country Baptist woman, it revealed a facet of the Divine she didn’t often catch in her pastor’s Sunday sermons. 

God may disclose Himself to us in what some might consider the unlikeliest of ways.  I am convinced that He may be seen through the creatures He gives into our care.  I know we can see Him through our relationships, through achievements, failures, challenges, and trials in our lives, through the things we gain and the things we lose, through our hopes, dreams, desires, likes, and dislikes.  There is one thing we may be sure of, when we seek the Lord, He has promised that we will find Him.  You came near when I called on you; you said, Do not fear! (Lamentations 3:57); Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:8); Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart (Psalm 119:2).

In finding Him, I will find my true self and my true destiny.  I know that I often reference this verse, but it so often seems to bear repeating, so, with a little emphasis:  Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).

Following Directions

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. -- James 4:8

I can easily believe that if I draw near to God, He will draw near to me.  The question is how do I draw near?  James answers, at least in part, in the next sentence:  turn away from those things that keep us divided and polluted.  Jesus says, And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you  (Luke 11:9).  That is, ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking.  Don’t be discouraged because you stumble.  Don’t turn away because no one seems to be at home. 

It is said that we will weep over our sins here for a while or long in eternity.  There is nothing wrong with being broken when we are broken before God.  If we have something that was put together incorrectly, it will be wrong always until it is taken apart as a broken thing and put back together the right way.  If something in us in wrong, it will be that way until we are opened up that the thing may be turned right.  Only God can do that. 

That’s a lot of what I do with my writing here, especially this year.  I’ve made it into a sort of confessional where I look at the parts that aren’t right and instead of denying that I’m messed up or thinking that it is just the way I am, I give God space to disassemble and reassemble.  The truth is that I really didn’t think about it making much difference.  Then, all of the sudden, last weekend, an aspect of my life that had been painful and difficult for years, clicked back into place. 

I’m still thoroughly twisted but that was something I thought was broken beyond all hope of being fixed.  It wasn’t, and I’m still not sure if I had anything at all to do with putting it right – it certainly wasn’t much.  So there must be hope, always, for anybody, for any situation.  

Some dis-assembly required.