Big-ness

This post was originally created as a reply to the post "Lost in Paris" on my brother's blog page back in May

I was just, well I have been for a while, pondering "big-ness" last night. We, at post-college group, were discussing the problem of evil - how and why it came about. I was floored to tears during the conversation as I tried, as Paul says in Romans 9:14-29, to question God as if he were a man. All my thoughts and judgments/evaluations of God's intentions for good or evil are from the perspective of one man sizing up another. I was hit that I recognize and evaluate God more as a human than as, well, YHWH. I don't really know how to see God as a not-human, but I'd sell my soul to learn.

Later that eveniing, as I was driving, I looked miles down the street to where the foothills rise up from the edge of Boise. It was a beautiful and intimidating sight - I found myself stricken with awe and asking why this was so. My first thought was that I am, and all of humanity (at least guys) are, impressed by "big-ness" (size matters?), but why should I be impressed by bigness? My logical conclusion was that I only revered bigness because God is the fulfillment of bigness and the one who planted that desire in me. Just as I would have no preference to call one object beautiful while calling another ugly, so I would have no reason to revere mountains over speed bumps unless God made me that way.

I became very thankful on that drive that God would choose to allow me to recognize what he made as awesome and beautiful. Still, I can't shake the feeling and desire to see the creator (and giver of our respect for greatness and beauty) as he must be even greater and more beautiful yet. How privileged we are to be made with the capacity to genuinely revere, love, and respond in awe to God the creator.

I suppose it must be an effect of the fall that we can only know God partly now, and even then only enjoy as much of him as we know...I want to know him more thus to see him more rightly, respond more rightly, and have a better idea of what "Godliness" means. I also suppose most of my more embarrassing moments trying to be a Christian have come about as I've misinterpreted who God is and, consequently, act out my ignorance. I see it all around me as people ( act out very sincerely and annoyingly their idea of who God is: God is harsh, God is unforgiving, God holds grudges, God is vengeful, elitest, conceited, cold, distant, aloof, fixated on me, etc. I'm still guilty of these things, but I'm pretty sure the more I understand God for who he really is, the more I'll be able to please him, be useful to him, and respond as he created us to respond.

Until then, I'll enjoy viewing that part of his big-ness that I'm able to comprehend - excited for a glimpse beyond my field of vision. I'm content only in the fact that he created me to love who he is and hate what he's not.

The Higher Sacrifices

Malachi is a touching book that really shows the LORD's heart. He opens by introducing himself as LORD or YHWH, his personal name, and explaining that he loves his people. His priorities are first and foremost of reestablishing a love-relationship that Israel had left. In the next paragraph he appeals to the other (same?) side of his character by introducing himself as LORD of hosts (ESV). This name is a little more scary and holds a different kind of authority than YHWH alone, so we get the idea, aside from the obvious rebuke in the text that he is not pleased.

Acadamia aside, this book touched me on many levels, the biggest being the area of sacrifice for the LORD. In thinking upon the "application" of the book, I began to think about where I sacrifice for the LORD, or, rather, where I don't. My first thought was "What ought I give up for the LORD that is getting in the way of my relationship with him?"

After trying to semi-successfully find a suitable and moving answer, I realized I was asking the wrong question. I don't think the OT idea of sacrifice has much to do with giving up things you ought not have or habits you should stay away from. Instead, sacrifice invlolves giving up things that are actually good and right. My idea of sacrifice has been backwards, and I believe Evangelical Christianity may fall into the same trap. God is not asking for us to give up our worst so much as he is asking us to give him our best. This was a fundamental shift for me and quite the change of paradigm.

Os Guiness' book A Time For Truth looks at this conceptual distinction in a different light. In the realm of freedoms, Os says that there are two kinds - lower and higher freedoms. The "lower" freedoms are those things that we ought to be free from: murder, theft, racial/gender/religious persecution, etc. The higher freedoms are things we are free to: serving, loving, praising, helping, saving, choosing, etc. It is in this last category where I see the OT idea of sacrifice residing. I suppose sacrificing could belong in both realms, with the LORD preferring the latter, but I think the former category is where so many of us get hung up. The lower form of sacrificing, giving up a vice or not being a jerk to one's mate/friend is necessary and good, but it only sets the stage for the higher form of sacrifice.

What a shame that I(we) as a Christian and human in general get so focused on what I ought to stop doing or start doing to please the LORD that I never ponder how I can show my love to him even more by giving him my best, the most valuable, and thereby showing him that(if) I think he surpasses those. In all reality, the "if" is more accurate at this point. There are things I value more than God and would not want to give them up. I don't know if I should give them up wholesale or instead realize that I need to pursue the LORD further to see him as more valuable. Intellectually, he is obviously more valuable, but the problem is that my heart loves other things more.

George MacDonald puts it this way: "He looked around upon his congregation and trembling a little with a new excitement, he began, 'My hearers, I come before you this morning to say the first word of truth ever given me to utter. In my room, three days ago,' the curate went on, 'I was reading the strange story of a man who appeared in Palestine saying that he was the Son of God. And I came upon those words of his which I have just read to you. All at once my conscience awoke and asked me, 'Do you do the things he says to you?' And I thought to myself, 'Have I today done a single thing he said to me? When was the last time I did something I heard from him? Did I ever in all my life do one thing because he said to me, 'Do this?' 'And the answer was, 'No, never.'...He then proceeded to show that faith and obedience are one and the same spirit: what in the heart we call faith, in the will we call obedience. He showed that the Lord refused the so-called faith which found its vent at the lips in worshiping words and not at the limbs in obedient action. Some of his listeners immediately pronounced his notions bad theology, while others said to themselves that at least it was common sense" (35) Macdonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God: Where Obedience is the One Path to Drawing Intimately Close to Our Father. ed. Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House, Minneapolis: 1990.

I like how George makes it plain why we would obey (or, in my context, sacrifice. Or, in Guiness' context, practice the higher form of obedience). We obey or sacrifice live free or move or breathe because he said to. The heart of sacrifice, obedience and living free is a heart that is moved by the Lord. I long to move away from simply giving up to giving unto.