The Fear of God (or, a wrestling with I John 4:18)

i can remember being a young child--still young enough to be what many consider "carefree" but old enough to embark on fledging flights of critical thinking--and i can remember a very specific evening. i remember crawling into my bed in the room at the end of the hall after watching Aladdin, kissing my mother goodnight and letting the darkness sweep out from the flip of a light switch as it engulfed the walls and the ceiling and floor and the bed and my body. and i was still.

and my mind began to tread into the systematic prayer: "now i lay me, down to sleep..."

but the words, formed and generated as they were so many nights before since i had learned the bedtime supplication, started to drift from their typical path. in fact, my mind veered from the words and started thinking on their Recipient. and His nature. i started considering where God was and what He was doing right at that moment and if i was on a holding line or live on air. and then i thought again about where He was, and on the line of the prayer "if i die before i awake, i pray the Lord my soul to take." which was followed by the thought: "well, if i'm going to die, what will my next waking moments be like?"

and i was petrified.

i considered what it meant to live in eternity, and it frightened me. the longevity of it frightened me. my inability to fathom such magnitude frightened me. the naive assumption of my impending boredom of living in clouds and doing the same things day after day after day into infinity frightened me. my heart raced. my sheets became hot and heavy over my stiff and alert frame. i kept myself up far past my bedtime, reeling my mind over such thoughts.

and it is this moment that i point to and say, "this is where i first tried, and failed, to experience a fear of God."

~

I John 4:18 says, "there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." i scratched my head at this verse recently, as i had been weighing the concept of godly fear. if i'm supposed to fear God, and God is love (earlier in verse 8), how can there be no fear in love?

when we talk about a fear of God, anyone (Christian or atheist, ignorant or well-informed, young or old, etc.) can relate to what we mean by fear. it's the unattributed bump in the night. it's the ghost movie you knew you shouldn't have watched, especially while housesitting at 8 p.m. at night. it's the haunted house, the lost child, the upcoming test or the contemplation of death.

but if these are our only reference points when we apply an emotion of fear to our encounter with the living and active God, we have only begun to wrap our arms around what that colloquialism and commandment mean. we limit our scope of godly fear to merely personifying God as an angry father striking down the sinner with lightning bolts. is this what God made fear for?

in his book World War Z, Max Brooks explores the societal, global and psychological implications of a fictitious zombie outbreak. early in the novel, an interviewee makes the following insight about the ability to sell a "miracle drug" during the initial signs of the epidemic:

The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. "Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. "Turn on the TV," he'd say. "What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products." ...Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.

indeed, fear is primal. what motive but fear does the first man attest to his act of shame? "...'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and i was afraid...'" (Gen. 3:10). certainly this is quite the literal sample of a fear of God. fear is a driving motivation and factor in decision-making. why would we be equipped with such an emotion? doesn't a spirit of timidity cripple our faith (II Tim. 1:7)? i would assert there is no doubt that a Christian--and therefore every human--needs fear to appreciate a dimension of our relationship with our Creator.

following a cursory exploration of Strong's concordance, the word "fear" is often linked to two ancient words and derivations thereof: the Hebrew "yare" and the Greek "phobos" (disclaimer: i don't claim to be a scholar in semantics, languages, translation studies, etc.--just a guy trying to better understand his faith). these words have forms that are often associated with terror, fear, being fearful, fright--you get it.

however, when used in certain contexts, these words take on a higher level of meaning. it's not just a fight-or-flight response, but a longstanding awe and reverence for the source of fear. the base-level terror is what we read of in Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:5 where Jesus teaches us fear God's power rather than men. However, we see the elevated sense of reverent fear when the Israelites are commanded to fear God: "It is the Lord your God you shall fear (revere)" (Deut. 6:13). It's also that sense of reverent fear that the unbeliever is rebuked by the psalmist: "there is no fear (reverence/respect) of God before his eyes" (Ps. 36:1). this reverence is required to fully acknowledge God for who he is.

in the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer sums up two alternative displays of fear in nature in laymen's terms:

'I read something in National Geographic about how, when an animal thinks it’s going to die, it gets panicky and starts to act crazy. But when it knows it’s going to die, it gets very, very calm' (emphasis mine).

 i believe Foer captures the elusive difference between a simple terror of something and a submissive, yielding respect of that something. to fear something is to give the source of our fear power (boggarts, anyone?). fear recognizes control and a lack of understanding. i freak out around spiders because i don't know the nature of spiders and i don't spend a lot of time around them or studying them. similarly, i'm afraid of heights because it is an uncommon occurrence for me to be high up and i recognize my helplessness over the circumstances should gravity pull me down.

applying this to my adolescent, heaven-fearing self: thinking about my soul's condition after death and the temporal concerns of how time will be spent resulted in my panic. i rebelled, in typical fight-or-flight fashion, against something that i couldn't understand (this is why i say i failed at my first attempt to fully fear God). knowing about my soul's condition and God's grace and the hope of heaven, however, yields peace, calmness, stillness.

we must fear God, in the full sense of that word, to be faithful to God. this is why Paul encourages Christians to work out our faith "with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12, 1 Corin. 2:3). but it's not the babe in Christ's initial understanding of fear (terror) that yields sanctification; this surface-level fear is a mere hearing and gut-reacting to God's wrath, judgement day, our own imperfect condition, God's power, etc. only when we marinate our fear into its full form do we allow ourselves to be paralyzed in perfect submission to God's authority and might, recognizing His control. He is the only thing truly worthy of our purified fear.

circling around to I John 4:18, then: the more we lose ourselves in God's perfect love, the more our terror-fear and fear of punishment is cast out, leaving room for a reverent-fear and respect: God is holy, perfect. i am imperfect. God has done something about it, and that something is Jesus. it is in the wake of such fear-deserving love and power that i must work out my faith and respond to God's calling to a higher standard of living.

i would argue that our world needs more Christians who truly fear the Lord (and i place myself at the front of this line). i am much too comfortable, too fearless, with modern conveniences and standards of living in this world, so much so that i often lose myself to become part of this world--i fear the things the world fears. Trials and tribulations, being ostracized or not being "normal." may we take the time to acknowledge our fear of God, attributing to him the sole source of worthy fear, and may we let ourselves fall trembling face down before His throne in reverent submission. may this keep us in humble service to Him. may our fear mature into the daily awe that guides in Jesus's footsteps in our lives. and may we more fully experience God's blessings in this life because of it.

Made to Suffer

"it's the sticks and stones that wear us down
that often save our lives."
-mutemath, break the same

i've been pondering about the nature of suffering, recently.

not that i've been in some earth-shattering season of my life, but rather i have been musing on the inspiration and application of things i've seen and learned from books i've recently read (the road, mccarthy; desiring God, piper), tv shows i watch (breaking bad, walking dead, lost) and movies i've recently seen (life of pi, the intouchables, the grey).

all these things started lining up as i've been teaching a class on sunday morning about refuting modern atheism. i wondered and i asked myself, "what's the biggest reason folks turn away from God, His full and unadulterated Word and His Son?"

surely there are several answers worth exploring. but its emotional weight seems to make the suffering we see in our world as good a candidate as any for the denial of God.

in all the media i listed in the first paragraph, we see suffering: some are fictitious, such as a zombie apocalypse, but others--like a plane crash in a frozen wilderness or a husband being dragged into the drug trade to support his family--those seem very real. in both real and imaginary cases, we can see their struggle. we taste their tears. we relate with their burning anger or sense of hopelessness.

we can relate, because we see that pain in our own world. why the holocaust? why 9/11? why school shootings?

and because we see that pain in our own lives. why this test result? why this broken relationship? why this stupid decision that now impacts the rest of my worldly life?

and so many a person sees all this and says, "if God is all powerful, if God is everywhere and can do anything, why would He do these things?"

it's important to stop right there and make clear: God is not a supernal, angst-ridden preteen with a looking glass burning up his trapped ants for amusement. we are precious in God's sight. rather, God allows calamity and unfortunate occurrences befall us. just look at job: he suffers a lot, but it's not at the hand of God (though it may seem to him like that's the case).

"'...but stretch out your [God's] hand and touch all that he [job] has, and he will curse you to your face.' and the Lord [in reply] said to satan, 'behold, all that he has is in your hand. only against him do not stretch out your hand.' so satan went out from the presence of the Lord" (Job 1:11-12). even though satan request it be God's hand that tests job with trials, satan is the tempter--the deliverer of hardships--in job's case. and God sets the limits of how far we can be pressed (1 Corinthians 10:13).

so that leaves us with a slightly different quandary. to steal language from john piper, "why has God ordained that evil be?" why does God allow us to suffer as His children?

doesn't He love us?

again, another tangent that i think relates: our culture has warped the definition of love. to love something in contemporary america means to tolerate the way things are, to accept and embrace what is without changing it. to not ruffle feathers or try to change the way people live, even if we believe it's wrong.

the Bible teaches that true love stands in direct contrast to this worldly way of love. true love loves enough to discipline, to cause subjective pain to better in the end. God sees the whole mosaic of redemptive history (thanks again to piper for his wording), so His love is full and complete--not temporal like ours.

example: parents love their children, but you better believe discipline sets them straight when they're exploring the limits and bounds of their world. this is done out of a love motivation; it's how kids learn and become knowledgeable of goodness and the best way to live (Hebrews 12:11). so it is with God's children: even if "bad" things happen to us, it doesn't mean God loves us any less; He is, after all, the perfect being of love (1 John 4:8).

now, rounding about to my main thought: just as God allows the pain of discipline to mold His children to look more holy and righteous day by day, so he permits struggle and heartache and natural disaster to occur. we only see the close up instant and say, "what pointless suffering. what a pity. what a shame." but God allows these things to happen, and ignites opportunities for the gospel, His love and His will to go forth into the darkness of our world.

while i never may have to struggle for survival out in the elements, or while i may never be on death row for my faith, i just as very well could be in those or similar scenarios. if that's the case, then my soul is better off for it. because i would be learning how to trust and rely on God. i'm much too comfortable in this life i've been blessed with, and i learn to rely on myself instead of Him.

so in faith facing my sufferings, whether relatively small or big, are all to the glory of God.

because, in fact, we are guaranteed to suffer (John 16:33; 2 Timothy 3:12).

in fact, we should rejoice at the chance to have our souls bent and stretched to give us God's blessings of endurance, character and hope--a full and complete soul that lacks nothing (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4).

in fact, our suffering is temporary compared to the eternal hope of forever being with God (1 Peter 5:10; Romans 8:18).

in fact, a true, Bible-believing Christ follower's suffering is precious in God's sight and He will not leave them to face suffering alone (1 Peter 4:12-19; Isaiah 43:2).

whether you suffer now, in 30 years or somewhere in between, take heart knowing that God does not allow purposeless suffering. may this peace of God's grace and justice protect us now and down through life.

relationships ≅ Relationship

i recently sat in a room at the uc medical center in cincinnati drafting an outline for what would soon be this blog. my fiancee huddled over a book to my right, and my grandmother laid a few feet in front of me on a hospital bed. her head was mostly shaven, sporting a line of staples from the surgery and procedures following a sudden ruptured brain aneurism. her eyes, half opened while half closed, don't seem to stare at anything in particular.

i steal glances at her every few moments in between my scribbles. here and there i'll even chance a few steps over to her side, ask her if she wants a sip of sierra mist. she's doing incredible, given the state she was in just a little over a week ago. i remember holding her hand for the first time in that hospital bed, thinking, "i can't remember the last time i've felt her hand for so long."

why do we wait to hold hands with family members until something tragic, heavy or disturbing happens in our lives?

it's in the midst of her painfully slow but steady recovery, in the aura of that hospital room (which she's recently vacated for the preferential rehab facilities), where i finally collect my thoughts on her. and my mother. my fiancee. every person i share my life with.

the fact i have started upon is this: our relationships are not merely biological happenstance or survival code. it is no accident God presents Himself to us as a Father in scripture; the title is nothing but true. it's in His infinite wisdom that God has given us our different relationships (especially family, which i'm delving into here) so that we might understand our multi-faceted relationship with Him. 

it's not just the parental role--i'm coming to realize that every meaningful connection i share with another life points me back to understanding how God and i feel toward and interact with one another. each role--parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, siblings, spouse, and more--has congruency with the tie that binds us to our heavenly Father. 

and i can't imagine that this is any coincidence. 

the easiest place to start is the one we see and hear and understand most readily: parents and children. surely there are plenty of cliched anecdotes, allegories and the like of our God as the perfect parent and we who follow Him are His children. this relational description often comes about from the unconditional love He feels for us. but i want to pull up specific interactions here--day to day events that should remind us of the Relationship we have.

for instance: the idea of blessings. Jesus spells out how we understand God by how parents and children understand one another when he teaches, "what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:11-13).

instinctually, parents know how to treat their kids (though some in the world skew the execution of the parental instinct, yea, what it means to even be a parent). parents have the best interest of their children at heart. they know what their children need, require, desire. they are sure to provide--perhaps not in the exact manner or timing their child thinks, but they always come through.

we know God gives us the perfect gift, everything we need: Himself in the form of the Holy Spirit. and whether we've experienced one, both, or warped versions of either of these relational roles (parent or child, that is), we can understand that, like eager children, we ought to look for God as our role model and guide in this life.

it becomes clear with insight into today's youth trends and popular culture that raising children has become an end to check off a list, not a means for preparing them for life and pouring truth into them. it can be hard to see a connection to our Relationship through this sludge of "best friend mommies" and aloof, disengaged dads. and many of us, myself included, don't revel in any form of conflict--discipline not excluded. no wonder a firm hand has become uncool.

but God wants growth. and that doesn't always mean comfort.

we don't have an easy walk in this life, and it's a trial to obey God--just flipping through the old testament and the book of acts reveals as much. it's in these moments of confusion, doubt and anguish that we must ask ourselves in the words of Paul: "have [we] forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons [and daughters]?" (Hebrews 12:5). while sin may seem the easier (or at times even the "right") way of living, God directs our steps as a stern yet loving parent:

it is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? if you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

hear that: we're disciplined for good, to share in God's glory and fulfill our purpose as creators that exude God's glory.

yet just like little kids who think our parents aren't letting us have fun, we shake our fists and yell at the sky, stomping our feet and asking, "why can't it be easier?" "where's the fun in this life?" "why make sin so fun if it's so bad?" instead of a clear answer, we are given: "because I'm your father/mother, that's why." we may not fully understand the rationale of our own discipline until we ourselves discipline our child and see through a parent's eyes--just as we might understand God's mysterious workings in our lives once we stand in His presence, or at least read His words to us.

until then, He gives us an example of how to understand our lot in life with the commandment, "children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'honor your father and mother...that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land'" (Ephesians 6:1-3).

obeying our parents, then, is like obeying God. we honor God when we obey and submit, just as we obey earthly parents. the truth--that God loves us unashamedly and operates above our limited scope of reality and circumstances--often eludes us. despite this, He always does what's best (He's God, after all): "whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him" (Proverbs 13:24).

of course, there comes a time to leave father and mother, and cleave to a new family (Genesis 2:24).  in this relationship, we also find congruency with our bond in the Lord.

we don't have to stretch our minds too far to see the traits that relate our earthly marriages to our heavenly Father: dedication, sacrifice, life-long commitment, union, etc. but the allegorical links between a marriage on earth and our relationship with God reach further than that. much further.

i look at scripture and see, with bated breath, that marriage is a way of God for expressing to us the backs and forths He experiences in our Relationship with Him.

i offer here two points, seemingly disconnected in the old and new testaments, but when compared together reveal a heart-wrenching, beautiful truth.

we see that God must make a perfect helpmate for Adam by taking part of Adam to create Eve. it just so happens that his rib is the specimen of choice (Genesis 2:21-22). how poetically just is this next scene with that context? in the gospel of John: "but when they came to Jesus [on the cross] and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. he who saw it has borne witness...that you also may believe" (19:33-35).

don't miss the anatomical specificity here: from the side of the man who brought sin into the world, God  yielded his perfect wife; just as from the side of the man who killed sin and death, God yielded His own perfect wife--the bride--the church.

as husband and wife might embrace and lay affectionate ownership over one another in marriage, John the baptist expresses similar understandings of Jesus' mission of retrieving us: "the one who has the bride is the bridegroom" (John 3:29). Paul sheds further light on this relational parallelism in his letter to the ephesians:

wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. now was the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her...for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church" (Eph. 5:22-26, 29)

 so: Christ's affection for us is like a husband's affection for his wife. but there is so much more to understand  that's wrapped in the heavenly marriage of Christ and his followers. suffice to say, we can understand our relationship with God and the connection we have with him through Jesus by looking at our own marriages and how they ought to work.

of course, there's an ugly side to this coin, too.

just as drawing the connections between faithful marriage unveils profound implications for our relationship with God, so does the connection between unfaithful adultery and our neglect of this relationship with the Father uncover equally earthmoving yet disquieting truths.

i can't find a better book in God's word to illustrate the heartbreak and aching God experiences at our denial of His hand than when He asks one of his own prophets to act the scenario out in an earthly marriage: Hosea marries Gomar, a prostitute, and sees just how crazy God can get with unfaithful followers. going around worshiping sports, grades, sex, Baal or money is like whoring ourselves out when we ought to be faithful to God.

how far the world has fallen, and how desperately God yearns to draw us all back: "and I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. and you shall know the Lord" (Hosea 2:19-20).

i could go on, but then when would i speak of siblings? how the awkward, disgruntled skirmishes of young brothers and sisters helps us grow up (Prov. 27:17), how members of a family are like members of a body, unique and loved and cherished equally but for different reasons and qualities (1 Corinthians 12:14-27)? of course, loving our brother helps us understand how to love God (1 John 4:20-21), and Christ himself is our brother in faith, who calls His followers His siblings (Matt. 12:46-50), who experienced the same trials and temptations of the flesh as we do (Hebrews 2:14-18). just as siblings stick together through thick and thin, so Christ became like us as a peer, a brother, to empathize and save.

by no means exhaustive, these musings of mine have just begun to awaken in me the awe and wonder of how God arranges the world around us. even in the seemingly commonplace cultural norms of family ties do we see traces of His fingerprints, all for our benefit and drawing us to his mercy seat. new understandings, conflicts, milestones and experiences in our earthly lives allow us to gain deeper communion with God as we adopt new roles and relationships throughout life.

~

christmas day, 2012. Leigh and i step into a new hospital room; it welcomes us more than the last one we were in, opening up new space and a greater sense of warm privacy. and there she is--sharp as a tack, though not completely healed, my grandmother turns to meet us, and her eyes are alight.

i have no doubt she would sing over me, for all the pride and joy (Zephaniah 3:17) that her limited movements still express at the arrival of her grandchild and grandchild-in-law-to-be. later on, her phone calls from the rehab facility will make my heart swell with pride in sharing heritage (Romans 8:12-17) with such a strong, kind--and feisty, of course--soul. hers was an exemplar faith to mine in my early years (Psalm 145:4), and she continues to inspire me (II Timothy 1:5; Titus 2:1-3) even now, as i eagerly anticipate seeing her at home again.

thank God for family.

amen.

Apologetics & Authority, or, truths vs. Truth

i am currently undergoing the strange contortion that i'm sure all alumni of an institution of higher learning undergo in the months following their graduation. i read my news streams and hear chatter and get grapevine-fed tidbits of school starting up, the class schedule gauntlets and the excitement of being on campus. and i'm not part of it; this is the first season in 16 years that i won't be going to school.

it's a bittersweet feeling.

i loved school. not just witt, but every level of it: k through 12. it was always a journey--let's discover something, let's get to the heart of a matter. let's learn something worthwhile, and perhaps we'll even contribute to the world around us in the process.

in school (and in much of life i suppose), there is a nice little safety net we all cling to when we find it. i can't pinpoint exactly where it starts, but sooner or later every student realizes the power of rhetoric and apologetics: i can say, believe or do whatever i want as long as i provide a convincing argument. it's the haunting allure of that equalizing field: it's my opinion. it's how i see things. as long as i can back it up with something, i'm in the clear. good to go.

everything is true. live and let live.

but what about the time-tested observation that those who don't stand for something will fall for anything? am i imagining a parallel there?

~

i recently took a weekend trip to philadelphia where i got to attend church services as the mt. airy church of christ. a quaint storefront shop and a welcoming crowd made for an enjoyable morning--nothing fancy, genuine. the preacher, James Baker, made several good points; but none of his statements stand out as much as this: in order to silence a Christian, all their debate counterpart would need is to discredit scripture.

just discredit the book.

as a Christian, this book of God's divine inspiration ought to be my final source of wisdom, advice and guidance. such an absolute stance can be daunting by worldly standards, especially when interacting with other people. whether they're 100 miles or fractions of millimeters from my own beliefs or lifestyle, i try to love people the best ways i know how. i look for God's handiwork in their lives, and i always find it. but i also can't ignore their sin--my sin--everyone's Sin. i hate the pervasive corruption we all fall prey to at some point in some form.

here's the rub: each person, myself included, is inclined to construct their own argument for the way things come out and how they live, their versions of how to "do life" best: it's free choice. it's my will. it's my life.

it's my truth.

the simplified issue is this: as a follower of Jesus, i proclaim God's word as truth. that means whatever opposes or strays from God's word is, yes, wrong.

i can be wrong.
you can be wrong.
but God's word cannot be wrong.

and that black-and-white approach doesn't jive at all with today's think-what-you-want, do-what-you-want, everybody-can-be-a-little-right mentality. after all, why can't everybody get a ribbon in the truth competition?

the unpopular reality is this: when i uphold God's living and active word as capital "T" Truth, i imply someone else is wrong. i'm not attacking individuality here. i'm just wondering out loud: by what sort of standard does any given person measure his or her life?

in other terms:
multiple truths = no Truth

i will be the first to admit that i need more boldness in this area of my walk with the Lord, but a Christian needs to stand unwaveringly to biblical teaching. the Bible is exhibit a. our only evidence in the realm of apologetics on life. if the world can truly discredit my God's word, then i lay down my arms and submit defeat, admitting that what i believe as Truth is just another truth.

but God's word, His law and the scriptures, must be discredited first.

until then, i trod forward by what i read in the Bible: "all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16). this book ought to be my morning cup of coffee, my late night phone call, my psychiatrist's couch, my agenda and balance sheet. God's using the realm of symbols and paper and translations and semantics to impart His love, grace and will into my life. who am i to not listen?

so what else does exhibit a got going for it? well, it didn't come from just any given earthly world view--Paul explains this to Timothy when he says, "for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (II Peter 1:21). yes, real dudes wrote the Bible. they were caught up in their own lives and their own messes. yet isn't it uncanny how scripture reverberates and echoes itself, amplifying and reasserting again and again the themes of God's character and the gospel of His call to obedience as a beloved child? that's the Holy Spirit for you: a presiding editor to every writer's pen as they constructed the earliest versions of scripture.

no wonder that God's words are "living and active," then; i read the words or share them with a friend of any given background, and we get right to the heart of our deepest-held secrets, those elements of Truth we all try to hide behind our truths. scripture "discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

you must admit, that's scary as all get-out. every day we craft little truths for ourselves to make our egos as comfortable as possible. "it's completely natural to have these thoughts." "i'm sure God doesn't care about such and such." "i can make it on my own."

but a rational argument for any sort of Truth doesn't hold up to "well, that's just how i see things." and therein lies the beauty of living life by the Lord's word: while the world advertises a self-authority, our authority as Christians is based in something outside ourselves. something everyone can experience, something everyone can read through and live by and reflect on. they aren't my arguments, they're God's (John 16:13). you don't disagree with me necessarily, you disagree with my argument which is founded in God's holy word (I Thessalonians 4:8).

Paul sums it up nicely: "and we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place... knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, by men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (II Peter 1: 19-21).

a person's truth comes from within himself or herself. but Truth comes from God, and that Truth never changes. God doesn't change (Malachi 3:6), and He never will (Hebrews 13:8). no wonder it's hard to knock exhibit a down.

"just discredit the Book."

the stickiness that comes with exhibit a lies in projection reading, or rather, reading what you want to out of God's word. instead of wrestling and assessing and working towards change in one's life, it's so much easier to twist God's language, take it out of context or misinterpret/skew the words until the Truth looks much like one's own subjective truth.

we continually face this temptation: to make the gospel of Christ a gospel that suits our needs, circumstances and conveniences. Paul warns the Galatians about any "different gospel" that detracts from what God is actually saying, "not that there is another [gospel of Truth], but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ" (Galatians 1: 7). we've got one source, one piece of evidence for our apologetics and authority on life, but there sure is a lot of commentary and appendices that tend to surface.

i'll be the first to admit that i have been stirred and inspired to deepen my faith from some of this commentary: C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, John Piper and a handful of other authors come to mind. but if i start relying on these as my primary sources, i run the risk of drifting farther from God's intended word. i could encourage anyone to read "Christian" literature, but it better be done with exhibit a open right alongside for the final say on any matter that may arise, lest we start seeing the Truth contorted and blurred (2 Peter 2:2; 3:16). this is the womb of "christianese" coming out of cultural christianity, which seeks to make God relevant to specific generations and demographics by "polishing off the edges" of the gospel to be more "presentable."

as if He and His word weren't, by nature, relevant already.

my thoughts now focus on being more like Christ in regard to His Father's word: when we face decisions big and small in our daily lives (what to wear, how to speak, what we do with our time), we ought to mimic the Lord (I John 2:5-6) and let our Creator's will direct our steps, our lunges, our hobbles, our crawling, our skips and our trudging. Jesus faces terrible temptation, and his only weapon is the will and word of God (Luke 4:1-13). what a powerful example to follow and imitate.

may we never settle for a man-made truth but continually seek God's Truth in our lives.

√ed

i take them for granted more often than not, but when i take the time to mull over their stature and their form, i am fascinated by trees.

take something small. vulnerable. surround it in an environment that it is designed to thrive in: all the right nutrients and support it needs. it digs deep with roots it needs to attain adequate energy from the ground, and slowly… it grows. sprouts. shoots up, and begins to gather more energy, now from the sun. its whole existence is wrapped up in reaching higher and closer to the sunbeams it feeds on, and as it grows up—it also grows down, plunging roots deeper still.

and eventually, there’s fruit. the next generation of tree, the genetic striving the little flora has been after all along.

i see and contemplate the tree, and i see myself. i see us. i see the human condition.

i often shrug off (or outright avoid) the hokey inspirational shots of tree-filled meadows, glades or forests that somehow tote loosely tied-in quotes, scripture or encouragement in the corner of the frame. the process of tree growth—though more difficult to capture in a single image—now that’s what i find holy.

from this fascination, i come to a question that i find i ought to ask of anyone i truly care about, and i’d give the advice to anyone whose eyes happen across these words to ask this question of those they invest emotional fondness in as well:

where are your roots?

and then: how deep are they? where’s your energy source? are you working to grip deeper into that earth? is it even the right soil the tree of your story needs to be drawing from, or is a transplant in order?

i’m certain many will ready this and consider, “well i don’t really think i’m ‘rooted’ per se, i am much more of a take-it-as-it-comes, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants or go-where-the-wind-takes-me kind of person.” false.

again, i say false. it is the way we work—call it design, call it evolutionary structure, call it a need for consistency in a human life. the fact remains this: we all have roots. the matter is where they find a base.

the soil available in this day and age is abundant and diverse. where will you derive your nutrients, the stuff that will make you grow and give you energy?

money. family. awards. knowledge. adventure. control. recognition. victory. creativity. physical thrill. nature. beating the next guy. these and untolds more fuel any average American today.

but which of this makes me grow, truly? am i fulfilled? do i grow naturally, beneficially for my own existence? or do i twist and warp and deform my purpose and the best way of living life to occupy the soil that I think is best, that I see fit?

the human spirits comes equipped with roots, roots meant for a loving relationship with a radical King and Father that shaped us as such. Paul attests to this idea, using the concept of slavery rather than botany:

“do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience [to the Lord], which leads to righteousness. but thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart…and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:16-18)

in this excerpt, we see the truth of our own lived experiences: we present ourselves as slaves when we make ourselves vulnerable to something—when we send down roots into something. even if that “something” is our own selves, our own will.

the scary part is this: Paul draws a pretty definitive, divinely-inspired line here. either you get death from planting your life in sin (aka anything but God’s will for your life, aka anything except God), or your get life and goodness and the way things were meant to be by planting yourself, your hopes, your dreams and goals and aspirations and fears and worries and headaches and wonder and awe in a God who fashioned all those very things in your soul to begin with.

a return home. set to default. roots in their proper place.

Paul goes on in Romans chapter 6: “but what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (vs. 21-22).  

did that come in clear? when we lay down roots in anything but God, we end up feeling ashamed… the bury your head in your own misery, the sand, the pillowcase until you can’t hear the own disappointment in yourself shame. the “yes, it was me, i did that unthinkable evil, i stole the cookie from the cookie jar, i directly disobeyed just for the heck of it” kind of shame. we so often believe, “if i can just have this body/car/child/spouse/accomplishment/job/thing/entitlement, then everything will be great. yet when it’s for our own ends, when we live with roots on things below, we quickly run out of sufficient tree food for our souls. we tire. we fail. we buckle and break and cry and sigh and glance off into the horizon and wonder,

“really? this is what my life is about?”

indeed, a transplant is needed.

the ball’s entirely in our court. it always has been: in fact, God’s divinely-inspired author focused on the trees which symbolized how we plant our own roots today in the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:9). but that’s in the second part of verse nine—look at 9a: “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” the source of our choice come from the Lord, and the ability to grow—regardless of what kind of tree we choose to be, regardless of what kind of roots we set—also comes from Him. the weight of this is incredible. it means that, even when we turn our back on God (“while we were yet still sinners…” Romans 5:8), even when we curse His name, He gives us the breath to do so.

incredible—radical—love.

and so each of us must make a choice: continue in deviance to the Ultimate Being and Loving Father, roots firmly planted in misery and self-affliction, or transplant our roots into His grace and love, watered into His Son’s death through baptism and living faithfully as we continually are shaped in trunk and branch to best receive the rays of His light.

that’s what makes us truly grow.

but this is not a one-time choice. look at what Christ says: “if anyone would come after me [aka if anyone would plant their roots in the right place and experience abundant life a la John 10:10], let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). because of Christ’s sacrifice, we get to choose where we plant our roots every moment of every day; it’s not a one-and-done thing, but a way of living.

this is why Jesus reminds us that we as spiritual trees will “bear fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15). and as our roots grow deeper in His love, our branches extend more and more to those lost and broken in the attractions of the world. with roots above in God Himself, we send our branches below, here on this earth, in the form of all the good fruits He has planned for us to yield (Galatians 5: 16-25). i imagine this image, an inverted tree with its roots in unseen glory of the Father and its branches bringing fruit to the barren world below, might display what Christ had in mind when he said, “you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. these things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15: 16-17).

Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption makes a similar philosophical remark on our growing nature as humans/spiritual trees. Red asserts: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” the statement rings true for our spirits each day we decide, consciously or otherwise, whether we’re growing our own tree with roots in Christ’s tree, the cross. there is no such thing as stagnant faith: our actions, our thoughts and our beliefs either grow or decay every day—just like a tree.

and how can we ever stop growing and learning and building rings, year in and year out, when we have a perfect example to strive toward (I John 2: 5-6)? we are designed, indeed expected, to grow; we see it in the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13: 6-9). no suspended animation allowed; as time marches on, so does the tree’s natural processes of growth. and we must march on too in our faith lives, whatever soil that faith is planted in, for better or worse, either “planted by streams of water” and “yield[ing] fruit in season” or “like chaff that the wind drives away” (Psalm 1: 1-4).

my hope and prayer is that we all take the time to observe and carefully identify those fruits that pop up in our lives and draw the connection back to the roots that make those fruits, good or bad, possible (Genesis 1:11; Matthew 12:33). from this, we might ask ourselves: how am i growing, or how am i decaying? where can i go back, count the rings of the trunk, and see where God has encouraged and pushed my growth? and is the fruit i produce leading to shame and pain, or life and glory in God?

may we always be rooted in the soil of our Father’s will, the only soil from which we can continually drink and tap without His love and providence running dry.