I am in Colorado. I've been here for two whole weeks.
I am from the midwest. I've lived there for my whole life.
An interesting thing has happened: I end up completely missing the mountains—those giant landmarks practically right in front of me. I just... forget about them. I walk around Fort Collins without bothering simply to look up and see the glory displayed in the snowy tips of the Rockies. Every now and then I raise my stare from beyond what is immediately in front of me and am astounded by the reminder that yes, I am in Colorado, and yes, there are mountains here.
When I realized this tendency to just miss mountains, I felt pretty stupid. How could I miss something so big! So new! So strikingly different from everything I've known! And yet I do. I just forget they're there.
The more I thought about it, I began to see how this correlates to other parts of my life, specifically my spiritual journey and my relationship with Christ.
Like the mountains, God is right in front of me. Being in a relationship with Him has brought me into a new world, where I can see Him and experience all His glory—a new, wonderful, and absolutely amazing place. Yet I am still born of this earth and have fully participated in it's citizenship for most of my life. I am still finite and have my human limitations.
You'd think that living somewhere totally different would make you notice the new things more, but sometimes you just go into autopilot and forget that you're a citizen of a new place.
I forget there are mountains right in front me, and I often forget that God is right in front of me, waiting for me to just look up and come to my senses.
Look up. Look to the mountains. Look to God. Look to His Glory.
"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?"
Psalm 121:1 (ESV)
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Meeting God in a Grey World
Speak to most philosophers today about the search for truth and you might as well have said you were on a quest for unicorns. Tell them you believe in absolute moral truth and they will probably walk away, considering you uneducated, pitiable, and unworthy of their time in a debate.
Maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but from my experience as a student, it is not far from the truth (whoops, said it again).
Amazingly, truth is a hot-button word in our society. A conversation on the nature of truth, especially moral or religious truths, tends to go the same way as conversations about abortion or gay marriage: state beliefs, agree that what each other said was true (!) for them, and either leave or move on to other, most likely, less-threatening topics.
Less-threatening to what? To their security blanket of relativism.
But how secure is relativism? Agreeing that what someone else said was true for them simultaneously implies that it is false for you. But no one says, “what’s true for you is false for me!” Instead, they say, “what’s true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me!” Not only is that inanely redundant, it is an exercise in denial: denial of contrast.
Note how hard we avoid pointing out differences. Instead, we focus on more “positive” similarities. There is old cliché that what makes you different makes you beautiful, but that seems to stay within its safe range of self-esteem issues and continues to make ugly ducklings feel better about themselves.
Differences are celebrated unless they divide. If what makes you different makes you beautiful, we’re all beautiful. Oh goody.
Being separate is defining. Being different is defining. Definition is a source of truth. Definition gets you to the basics, the core, the roots.
Black and white.
R.C. Sproul quipped, “To meet God is a powerful study in contrasts.”
To meet God is to come into direct contact with what we are not, to recognize the defining separateness of God—the complete and utter inequality between Him and us.
Why is this so hard?
The world we live in is grey.
Not grey in the metaphorical sense of rain clouds and sad times—grey in the distinct lack of black and white, the distinct lack of contrast.
Our world is diverse, at least in people and cultures. Clearly, there is contrast there. Yet this is downplayed by relativism. Relativism seeks to hide ideological monotony under the guise of tolerant diversity.
Without black and white truth, the world has become grey.
But as Sproul stated so well, to meet God is to study contrasts—to have our true nature thrown in our face as we are thrown to our knees with our face to the floor, knowing we do not deserve His presence.
I’ve been contemplating lately why it is so hard for me to dwell on/in God’s holiness.
It’s hard to see the black and white of God’s holiness and our sinfulness when we’re so used to seeing grey.
Our eyes need to adjust to different lighting—a brighter light that reveals absolute truth, absolute separateness, and absolute definitions.
As hard as it is, I force my eyes open. I face the light. I see the contrast. I press on in the pursuit of truth, the pursuit knowing God—despite this utterly grey world.
Maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but from my experience as a student, it is not far from the truth (whoops, said it again).
Amazingly, truth is a hot-button word in our society. A conversation on the nature of truth, especially moral or religious truths, tends to go the same way as conversations about abortion or gay marriage: state beliefs, agree that what each other said was true (!) for them, and either leave or move on to other, most likely, less-threatening topics.
Less-threatening to what? To their security blanket of relativism.
But how secure is relativism? Agreeing that what someone else said was true for them simultaneously implies that it is false for you. But no one says, “what’s true for you is false for me!” Instead, they say, “what’s true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me!” Not only is that inanely redundant, it is an exercise in denial: denial of contrast.
Note how hard we avoid pointing out differences. Instead, we focus on more “positive” similarities. There is old cliché that what makes you different makes you beautiful, but that seems to stay within its safe range of self-esteem issues and continues to make ugly ducklings feel better about themselves.
Differences are celebrated unless they divide. If what makes you different makes you beautiful, we’re all beautiful. Oh goody.
Being separate is defining. Being different is defining. Definition is a source of truth. Definition gets you to the basics, the core, the roots.
Black and white.
R.C. Sproul quipped, “To meet God is a powerful study in contrasts.”
To meet God is to come into direct contact with what we are not, to recognize the defining separateness of God—the complete and utter inequality between Him and us.
Why is this so hard?
The world we live in is grey.
Not grey in the metaphorical sense of rain clouds and sad times—grey in the distinct lack of black and white, the distinct lack of contrast.
Our world is diverse, at least in people and cultures. Clearly, there is contrast there. Yet this is downplayed by relativism. Relativism seeks to hide ideological monotony under the guise of tolerant diversity.
Without black and white truth, the world has become grey.
But as Sproul stated so well, to meet God is to study contrasts—to have our true nature thrown in our face as we are thrown to our knees with our face to the floor, knowing we do not deserve His presence.
I’ve been contemplating lately why it is so hard for me to dwell on/in God’s holiness.
It’s hard to see the black and white of God’s holiness and our sinfulness when we’re so used to seeing grey.
Our eyes need to adjust to different lighting—a brighter light that reveals absolute truth, absolute separateness, and absolute definitions.
As hard as it is, I force my eyes open. I face the light. I see the contrast. I press on in the pursuit of truth, the pursuit knowing God—despite this utterly grey world.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Spare [me] Change: Comments on God’s Constancy and Human Mutability
This era of my life seems to be marked by constant packing and unpacking. As a coworker mentioned at work today, change is the norm. Maybe this is why postmodernism is so popular with my generation. Change often seems the only common thread among us.
Constant change is something generally deemed good by our society: change means progress, and progress is good. However, constant change also has its drawbacks: you think you’re finally settled somewhere only to find out that it’s time to move again. Change is a constant upheaval and replanting of life, stuff, self, friends, etc. You’re roots begin to grow in some place or some status or some thing and then it’s gone.
However, God wants us to be “rooted and established” (Eph. 3:17) in Him and nothing else. Constant movingpackingunpackingmovingetc is a constant reminder that only God is immovable, only God is unchanging. Think about it: God is constant in constancy. Our norm is constant change—His norm is constant constancy. Perfection doesn’t need to change.
I can pretend to be settled in here in Fort Collins for the summer. My bags (my many, heavy, overpacked bags) are unpacked. My bed is made with my Ohio University blanket. Family and friends smile back at me from the pictures taped to my walls. But in no time, I will be packing it all up and moving on.
Yet somehow, when everything around me is changingmovingspinning… I can get settled in God’s house. I can let my roots grow deep without worries of being dug up and replanted. I can care less about being settled in this earth, settled in things of the flesh. I can focus on why I am here in the first place: to bring God glory.
How does this make God look glorious? Only an all-powerful God could take something so changing and unstable as this human life and give it firm roots, give it a firm foundation—unwavering faith in my assured salvation and eternal life bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Constant change is something generally deemed good by our society: change means progress, and progress is good. However, constant change also has its drawbacks: you think you’re finally settled somewhere only to find out that it’s time to move again. Change is a constant upheaval and replanting of life, stuff, self, friends, etc. You’re roots begin to grow in some place or some status or some thing and then it’s gone.
However, God wants us to be “rooted and established” (Eph. 3:17) in Him and nothing else. Constant movingpackingunpackingmovingetc is a constant reminder that only God is immovable, only God is unchanging. Think about it: God is constant in constancy. Our norm is constant change—His norm is constant constancy. Perfection doesn’t need to change.
I can pretend to be settled in here in Fort Collins for the summer. My bags (my many, heavy, overpacked bags) are unpacked. My bed is made with my Ohio University blanket. Family and friends smile back at me from the pictures taped to my walls. But in no time, I will be packing it all up and moving on.
Yet somehow, when everything around me is changingmovingspinning… I can get settled in God’s house. I can let my roots grow deep without worries of being dug up and replanted. I can care less about being settled in this earth, settled in things of the flesh. I can focus on why I am here in the first place: to bring God glory.
How does this make God look glorious? Only an all-powerful God could take something so changing and unstable as this human life and give it firm roots, give it a firm foundation—unwavering faith in my assured salvation and eternal life bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.
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