From the nearly the beginning of human history, man has been trying to put God in a box.  This what our finite temporal minds do best.  By nature, we attempt to identify, classify, catalog, and quantify all we encounter.  It’s not a bad thing, honestly.  It was even part of Adam’s charged ministry.  And insomuch as we do this in the physical realm, that’s fine.  It’s our fundamental nature to do so.  It keeps us safe and healthy at the same time.

The problem begins when we take this nature and attempt to apply it to God.  It leads us to say that God is X, or whatever X happens to be based on our flawed and incomplete understanding.  God strongly condemns this practice in many places.  He rebukes those who would follow him from trying to cast him into an image, any image for that matter.  This is in no small measure, because any image, idol, or icon of him fails utterly as an expression of him.

This hasn’t stopped humanity from trying.  The Israelites demanded idols to worship in the desert.  They even turned the Ark of the Covenant into an idol of sorts in one of their confrontations with the Philistines.  In both cases, God handed down some of the harshest discipline in the entirety of the Old Testament, (with the notable exceptions of the Sodom narrative and the captivity periods).

Those examples stand out in stark relief and should prevent us from repeating those tragic mistakes.  Sadly, however, they do not.  Our modern, or post-modern if you prefer, intellects are stilling trying to cast God into a box.  We try to intellectually understand God in concrete terms we can easily absorb.  We attempt to lay hold of the infinite with our pathetic finite brains, and cast for ourselves a mental idol that we can easily make sense of, rationally understand, and work with.  We try to boil God down to some ‘cookies on the bottom shelf’ pabulum that is easily digested by the broadest cross-section of humanity.  It’s what we humans are good at, despite divine commands to the contrary.

My own personal experience speaks volumes to how tragically misguided these efforts are.  In each case, God seemed solidly bent on confounding the box in which I had constructed for him to reside.  I would believe God to be this, that, or the other thing.  I would construct a systematic theology to support this frame of reference, and I would then proceed to live life from this place.  In each and every case, I would feel sure I’d constructed a solid framework which God could work from and reside within.  And in each and every case, the framework would collapse of its own weight, because God either didn’t know the role I’d written for him in the construct, didn’t care to play by the rules I’d codified for him, or wanted to frustrate my every effort to build a box for him mental or otherwise.  As to which one was the most proximal cause of my frustration, I’m sure I won’t know this side of Heaven.  I do now believe that it was a little of all three.

And so it is that I am no longer a spiritual box builder.  I’m tired of building a thing only to find out how pathetic a job I’d done at building the container.  Today, I find myself enthralled by the mysterious nature of God.  I swear that the older I get the more mysterious God becomes.  And the older I get the less interested I am in box building and systematic theology construction that effect to explain God.  I’ll leave the box building and systematic theology construction to the younger crowd.  I don’t have the energy or the desire for it anymore.  I am, today at least, content with the description God gave to Moses, “I am that I am”.  Nothing more works, fits, or effectively applies.

Who am I, after all, to describe effectively a being that exists, a part from the confines of this mortal coil?  Who am I to attempt to rationally explain a being that at its very core is not rational?  I wasn’t there at the moment God turned the lights on by the simple act of a spoken declaration of will.  And it’s unlikely I will be there when he turns them off to replace them with the glorious radiance that is his fundamental being.  I wasn’t there when the God that doesn’t change yet somehow remains mysterious laid the foundations of this world, and all the others.  And, unless I am wrong, I won’t be there when he reveals the new Heaven and the new Earth, (at least in the flesh).

So I am left only to accept that God is, and that my life should be lived from a place of acceptance of that immutable truth.  I shouldn’t posses the wantonly arrogant hubris that believes the Bible gives me anything more than enough information about God to find faith and belief for that God.  To do so is absolute folly, and dare I say utterly foolish.  The Bible is not a handbook for understanding God.  It is not a biology textbook that quantifies God in realistic terms.  It does not function to provide a vivisectionist’s guide to dissecting the divine.  Rather it provides the evidence that confirms the existence of that God, and the route by which that God can be interacted with.  Anything more is vain folly and narcissistic arrogance that places more worth on the spirit of man than his creator confers himself.

Let me start out by saying that I believe in an activist God.  I always have, and I always will.  My struggles of late have tested my belief in this area sorely.  I have determined that it’s easy to espouse a belief in an activist deity when things are going well.  It’s easy to believe in a God that’s actively involved in the affairs of men, when one is gainfully employed, the bills are paid, and things are going pretty much according to your plan.  But that as I have come to find out over the last few months is faith not based upon anything but a theoretical understanding of God.  It’s easy to look at the Bible, see God at work there, and say that example exposits an activist God.

The last few months of my life have been a transition from a theoretical understanding of this principle of the activist God to a more genuine understanding of this principle.  I don’t say that as a point of pride, or as something of which I am proud.  I didn’t set out to end up here, and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to come here, but I am here nonetheless.  The transition from theoretical to practical can be summed up in a single word, uncertainty.  A life in which the things that were certain before become uncertain now, is the definition for this.

Before this period began, I could say with some measure of confidence what the immediate future held.  I could say that our bills were going to be met without difficulty.  I could say that our healthcare was assured.  I could say that I was a valued member of a team that made a difference in state government.  Today, none of that is true by default.  Each day carries with it a direct measure of uncertainty.  Today, and every day since this period began I am forced to confront the uncertainty that is incumbent in this situation armed only with the convictions of my faith.

I enter each day and have to reaffirm my faith that God is my provider, and that he cares for me and those he has entrusted to my care.   Each day I have to believe that this activist God has a plan, and that his plan is what is best for me.  Each day I have to accept, sometimes grudgingly and sometimes not, that God’s timing is perfect and that my timing isn’t his.  I have to dwell in the moment, and know that the God of Genesis 1:1 is working on my behalf for my best end, and I have to accept that no other end than this is what’s best.

Some days, like today, I find myself struggling with what God has promised and his timeline for fulfilling that promise.  I find myself, not unlike Sarah in the Old Testament, wondering when God is going to fulfill his word.  I find myself wondering about my value before and to this activist God.  And sometimes, I wonder if my prayers are breaking through the ceiling at all.  And on my worst days, I wonder if God has forgotten my number. 

And so it is on my worst days, like today, I have to struggle to believe in the activist God.  I have to struggle to believe that the God of the Bible still works that way today.  I have to struggle to believe in anything at all for that matter.  In a situation that from the outside looks bad trending worse, I worry, and I fear that it will never get better.  And the sum of those worries and fears become a smothering flood that threatens to drown me.

In the midst of those days, my solace, my comfort, my guide has become the knowledge that what I am experiencing is not uncommon to the human condition, and the human experience.  People before me have suffered this, and people after me will suffer this.  I have to recognize that this is a time in the crucible of life.  I am being exposed to intense heat right now; my distaste for this status quo notwithstanding.  I have to recognize the value of this time.  I have to somehow; as the writer of the book of James puts it, rejoice when I fall into trouble of various kinds.

And it has been in finding the joys of this time in the crucible that I have found relief from my fears and my worries.  It has been in being reminded of all that I have and how dear those things are to me, that the flood is swept away.  It is in participating in the simple joys of family life, that all that weighs upon me is relieved.  It is in watching my children find joy in playing cards, or watching a movie, or riding their bikes and scooters that I realize that things aren’t so bad.  It is in realizing what a wonderful woman I am married to, that I find the man I was meant to be.  It is the journey to becoming this man that God deemed it important to bring this time of woe upon me.  This activist God led me to this place.  And this activist God has deemed it important that I dwell here for a time, the exact duration of my stay is as yet undetermined.

I have found my place in the domicile that God has built up around me, and I relish it.  I have become actively involved in it, and it is a wonderful thing.  I have my good days, and my bad ones, but I love it for what it is.  And in all honesty, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Hope as it turns out is a cheap slut, or so my current situation would lead me to believe.  Allow me to explain…  I awoke this morning to find a situation that looked very promising in my email.  A company that I submitted a resume to for a completely different job, (for which I was absolutely unqualified), had done something very interesting.  Rather than toss my resume, they compared it to their other openings, and contacted me regarding a possible match.  In the preliminary discussions everything looked hopeful.  I dared to believe that this was THE ONE, that this was a providential opportunity that was going to lead to gainful employment.  I dared to hope.  I dared to believe.

It seemed like everything was going well.  I updated my resume as requested by the human resources staff at the company.  I asked for prayer from the people closest to me.  And everything looked like it was going to work out.  Until all hope was extinguished when the person I had been dealing with asked for more detailed revisions to my resume, and included the resumes of the other candidates in the process to show me what he was looking for.  It was at this point that hope fled like the virtue of a prom queen after the prom is over.  And I was left with an unbelievable situation and I was surely stunned.  The other candidates completely blew me out of the water in terms of qualifications, experience, training, and job knowledge.  They had advanced degrees, and decades of experience I could only wish to have.  One was even on the development team for the most current release of the product this job entails supporting.

And so I gave in to the dark despair that lurks in the recesses of my spirit.  I was left with a number of questions regarding the quality and nature of my faith.  The Bible says in many places that God cares for all of his creation.   Jesus himself repeats this theme in his ministry also.  I believe this to be true, and yet I wonder about God’s provision in my immediate context.  I am fearful about the future.  I accept the Bible at face value that God has a plan for my life, and yet I am frightened about its timing and implementation.

I wonder if I am a liar when I say that I believe in God’s word on this subject, yet reside in such a dark and despairing place.  I wonder if it is sinful to be fearful that God won’t fulfill his promises.  Am I a hypocrite when I exhort others to believe in God, when my faith seems to be so shallow?  Am I the wrong man for anything God may have planned for the future, when I am compelled to ask these questions?  Should I just accept the counsel of Job’s wife and ‘curse God and die’?

And yet in my darkest times I was reminded that God is sovereign.  I was reminded that despite my circumstances, God still sits on the throne.  I was uplifted to know that in spite of all the wind and rain that is buffeting my situation the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being that created the universe by the simple spoken declaration of his will still exists.  The power to confirm all that he has promised still resides in his spirit. 

If I do nothing more than retain the belief in those things, I will have succeeded in surviving the test of this moment, for surely it must have been a test.  I was compelled to remember always, that my timing isn’t his timing.  I was encouraged to remain steadfast in accepting that God pays for what he orders in our lives.  He protects all that creates with the same power that said, ‘let there be light’.  Those that God has entrusted into the care of my life, matter to almighty God.  I matter to him at the same time.

This moment might seem to some to have been trivial.  It might seem like much ado about nothing.  I assure you that it wasn’t.  The substance of my very soul was tested this morning.  I was weighed on the scales.  I can only pray that I didn’t come to the place of remembrance too late.  I can only wish that my despair wasn’t as costly to me in the long term as I fear it might be.  The path out of despair this morning was painful and difficult, but I came out of the place.  And I know I didn’t reside there or walk out of there alone.  The spirit of God was there trying to comfort the whole time.  It was this same spirit that provided timely remembrances of God’s word and promises.  And it was this same spirit that carried me out of the land of despair when it was time, my feelings regarding hope notwithstanding.

As I grow older thoughts of prayer seem to dominate my attention. I would like to think that spiritual maturity has developed my prayer life, but I believe I owe it more to practical experience. Over and over, I have witnessed the power of prayer. There have been countless times in my Christian life that prayer has helped me or one that I love.  

Recently, I witnessed the power of prayer up close when my wife was undergoing some scary medical tests. This wasn’t the first time prayer has played a critical role in my life, but it is certainly one of the more recent.

This event concerning my wife, coupled with a growing desire to pray for my friends, has caused me to ponder prayer extensively over the last few days. What is it about prayer that God likes? What types of prayer does He prefer? What does the Bible mean when it instructs us to pray without ceasing? (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

I’m reminded of Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, where he teaches that prayer is basically a request of things we want from God (see 1 Kings 8:22-56). Willard suggests that many of us have been taught that we are only to pray about big things like world peace or hunger (Willard calls this ‘heroic prayer’ but I prefer the term ‘Bono prayer’ coined by a friend of mine). Willard has the following to say about ‘Bono prayers’:

“Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about “good things” that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.” (Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 242)

It’s not that we shouldn’t pray for the big necessities of this world. However, if we are praying for the big things because we think God prefers them, we are mistaken. God wants us to pray for the things that really matter to us. Consider the Lord’s Prayer for a moment ( Matthew 6:9-13). The prayer opens by acknowledging the “bigness” of God ( Matthew 6:9-11). It is quickly broken down into things that really matter to us … daily food, forgiveness, temptation, and protection ( Matthew 6:12-13). Not many of us are in a position to cause world peace or end hunger, but we all have a small sphere of influence where we can help advance God’s Kingdom. If we all pray for God to put the little things of our lives in order, it will go a long way towards addressing the big things. God desires us to be honest and to pray about what really matters to us. If I may borrow from Willard once more:

” … [T]he most adequate description of prayer is simply, ‘Talking to God about what we are doing together.’ ” (Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p.243)

What are you in the midst of doing with God? For me, I immediately think of my marriage and our children. I have a vested interest in praying for my wife and kids. They matter to me. I pray for my friends and their families – those people who mean something to me. I pray for my schooling. I pray that someday God will be able to use what I’m learning for His glory in some small way. I am learning that as I consistently pray for the most immediate issues in my life it is inevitable the Spirit will lead me into some of those “Bono prayers.”

If you find your prayer life is growing stagnant, I highly recommend that you take a personal inventory in an attempt to discover what matters the most in your life. Once that discovery is made, dedicate yourself to a daily pattern of prayer. Keep your focus on those specific issues that you are most passionate for and stick with it. Eventually, you’ll find yourself praying for multiple issues in a variety of situations.

The more I stick to this routine, I am continually shocked by the blessings I have received. God is good!

(This post originally appeared on the now defunct centurybound.com blog on December 22, 2005. It appears here with some major rewrites from the author.)

While surfing the internet, I happened upon the blog of an atheist who was asking the following question of her readers:

 “How many people would believe in a god if there were no rewards promised to the self for doing so?”

This rather loaded question is a complicated one. It is actually not meant to be a question, but rather an attack on the principles of Christianity. The atheist is suggesting that the Christian faith is a selfish one and insinuating that if there were no promise of Heaven, there would be few, if any, Christians. There is no chance I could ever answer the question to this particular atheist’s satisfaction because I suspect she believes she already knows the answer. Furthermore, I’m not sure there is a way to know the answer. Since there is a promise of Heaven, I have no idea how many Christians there would be if that promise was ripped out from under us. I suspect, rather sadly, there would be less. Possibly much less, but that is just a guess. I know that in my own experience, Heaven did not enter the equation. I chose to believe in God because I had an encounter with Him that began to make sense to me intellectually. I then chose to believe in Jesus Christ (and the Christian faith) specifically for an abundance of reasons – none of which were Heaven. I sort of see Heaven as the icing on the cake. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad the promise is there; but my faith doesn’t hinge on it.

I believe we can examine this question introspectively in a way that can help us examine our faith. What if today, we pondered the following question?

Would you still follow Jesus Christ if there were suddenly no promise of Heaven?

If our answer to this question is ‘no’, I would suggest that we may be on shaky ground spiritually. I spent the majority of life before Christ creating a particular version of God in my mind and then imposing those values on the real God. For instance, the God I created was all knowing and all powerful. He had created this world and then stepped back to see what would happen. He was a fair God who would allow pretty much let anyone into Heaven provided they tried to live a good life (you know … paid their taxes, supported their children, didn’t kill anyone … that sort of thing). It was only when I humbled myself that I realized I had no right to impose my beliefs on God. If God were real, I had to allow Him to teach me about Himself and accept even what I didn’t understand. I had no business trying to invent God in my image. I had to understand and apply the old Axum that “Father Knows Best.” In other words, if God, in all His wisdom, suddenly decided there should be no Heaven, I would have to accept it – even if I didn’t understand it. I can’t worship God because of what He promises me, rather, I must worship God because He deserves it.

I am so thankful that my God has promised me Heaven. I also believe there is a hell. Hell, in my opinion, is proof that God loves us. How’s that you might ask? Well, if what we really want is a place that is free from the presence and influence of God, he will provide it for us even though it breaks His heart to do so. That place is hell. It’s not God that makes hell such a terrible place … it is the complete absence of God’s influence that makes hell so bad.

Even though I have a concrete belief in Heaven and hell, I can’t make that the focal point of my faith. Why? Well, if all I do is think about the future … someday far in the future … I am ignoring one of Jesus’ most powerful lessons. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. What did He mean by that? I think He meant that we can experience Heaven right now in our mortal life. If hell is the total absence of God, then Heaven is living in God’s presence. In fact, Heaven is more than just the presence of God – it is a place where God’s Will is done. We can experience God’s presence and live in His will right now. If we spend all of our time looking towards the future, we will miss out on the beauty that is Heaven on Earth.

Think about it … we all know the bitter and depressed Christian who lives a miserable life and constantly talks about Heaven in the future tense. My heart goes out to these people. Thank God they have the promise of eternal life from the One True God to keep them going. I am not suggesting that it would be healthy to totally forget about our promise of Heaven; I just pray that someday we can all experience a shadow of Heaven right now!