In times of comfort, we are able to derive ideals based on pure principles, our logic uncompromised by the instincts of self-preservation or self-advantage that might possess us in times of trouble. But it is only in times of suffering that those ideals are actually tested, transformed from theoretical belief to lived reality. Thus, perfect theory becomes raw conviction, all according to the seasons and wisdom of God.
People love to debate theological differences. Members of different Christian denominations argue the fine points of their faith, members of different religions argue about the true nature of God, and members of different belief systems will argue about the nature of reality or whether there even is a God at all.
It’s a bit of an interesting concept, given that all of these are truth claims, and the truth is immutable. It cannot be defined or changed by the debate; it just is what it is. Truth is unassailable. Even if someone wins a debate arguing against the truth, the truth remains the same and the debater still remains wrong.
Thus, debates about the truth are merely an exercise in opinion, with nothing of substance altered by the outcome. So, what truly is being contested in these sorts of debates? What really is at stake? Only the image and ego of its participants.
Is it any wonder than that these debates so often become emotional and heated? The passion with which many argue suggests that they realize that in reality is their own intelligence and reason that are on the line, that if they cannot prove their point then they have been beaten personally, even if their stance was the correct one.
For this reason, I believe that much of debate is a vain and shallow exercise, one that says much about the participants, and little about the underlying truth.
Those that say they will not follow God’s commandments until they are convinced that He is real overlook the fact that even the truly faithful regularly struggle to keep His commandments also. Even a strong belief in God’s reality does not suddenly cause us to swallow our appetites and live as perfect saints.
Indeed, it is our struggle with our moral behavior that leads so many of us to believe in God in the first place. Our belief in Him begins as we let go of our misplaced belief in ourselves. We try to change our hearts on our own, we consistently fail, we lose all trust in our own power, throw our last hope on a God that we are not sure of, and then experience a miracle as He changes what we never could.
Thus, the cynic’s disbelief of the Almighty and dismissal of the commandments is not due to having not explored God enough, but due to having not explored his own heart enough.
No one wants to be held to another’s standards,
But they do want the rest of the world held to theirs.
Living according to how we think God ought to have designed us
Is to live in perpetual frustration and impotence
Ambitions are good for life
But it is not good
If life is for the ambitions
There was a project that I once loved very much. It was a program oriented towards connecting men with God, helping them to bring their hearts back into His light. It was small and local, humble and unpolished, but it did truly miraculous things in the lives of those who attended it. Lately, though, I’ve found myself struggling to recognize that same institution from what it has become today. At some point, after about ten years of operation, the institution became a for-profit organization, and changes started being made for the betterment of the bottom line, not for the betterment of the men it served. Several of the original founders quit, due to personal disagreement with this new direction.
This has been a heavy thing for me to come to grips with, but as I have reflected on it I’ve realized that it was always going to go something like this. The special spirit of the old program had to meet its end one way or another, because that’s just the nature of things.
I am reminded of the story of the tower of Babel. In it, a nation of people decide to build a great tower, reaching all the way to heaven. Bold enough to make themselves gods, they toiled and labored on this great elevation of man until the whole thing toppled to the ground.
We do not know exactly how high they built their tower, only that it fell before they could achieve their aim. Their construction became destruction, their order became ruin, and the people were returned back to the level of the fallen earth.
This, of course, is a type for all manner of structures in the world today. And I don’t merely mean physical structures, either. Even more so it applies to structures of law, of government, of ideology, of any edifice constructed by the wisdom of man.
Every club, organization, corporation, and ideal is laid with ruin in its foundation. On the one hand, this might be because they are laid with carnal and earthly motivations, such as focus on profit or notoriety. Once making money is one of the organization’s pillars, then it is tied to the natural things of this earth, all of which decay, erode, and finally collapse. Through the years we have seen countless companies over-exploit their workers, consumers, and intellectual properties, killing the golden goose just to get a higher profit in the short term. We have seen countless governments siphon power and wealth to the highest class until they became too top-heavy and collapsed under their own weight. The compromises that were deemed necessary to make the enterprise possible eventually make its continued existence impossible.
But even without a foundation of earthly motivations, every structure of man is still doomed to fall due to our fundamentally flawed nature. Even our organizations that are built on ideal, and virtue, and purity of intention, gradually erode and eventually go wrong entirely. Even if a core principle is worthy, if it is taken slightly too far at the beginning, it will magnify and accelerate over time, eventually becoming a great evil. It is like stacking blocks to build a taller and taller tower, given enough time and distance every structure leans too far one way or the other. Given enough time and distance, every little flaw becomes a crushing error, and the whole thing will topple. So an organization founded with a focus on discipline will eventually become fascistic oppression, whereas a focus on liberty will eventually become gross hedonism. We sow the death even in the birth, it is simply our nature.
Even God’s church, once entrusted to earthly stewards, is tended toward ruin. The world was in a state of apostasy in the time of Noah, and in the time of Abraham, and in the time of Jesus. God has to refresh His word among His people repeatedly, not because His word has deteriorated, but because we people just keep losing our grasp of it. We know that even the believers today will once again be on the brink of ruin when God will have to refresh everything with the second coming.
Ironically, what truly lasts is what seems most transient. Though man’s works are doomed to fail, along the way they house occasional sparks of something pure and genuine. There can be a nugget of God in the midst of all the stone. And though that nugget seems momentary and transient, it is only because we are perceiving it through a shifting lens. In actuality, each of those nuggets is anchored in something realer and truer than the structure it was found within.
There is an entity behind all those sparks, a constant certainty beneath every brief wonder. By fastening ourselves to these pearls, and following their threads to deeper things, we tie ourselves to the only thing that is actually eternal.
The man-made program I once loved may be gone, but the experiences I found within it have not. Those experiences introduced me to the One who hasn’t changed at all, and never will. In reality, I haven’t lost a thing.
There is an interesting sentence in Genesis 26:8. This is how the verse appears in the translated English of the King James Bible:
And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.
During my regular study I observed that the word “sporting” was taken from the Greek צָחַק / tsachaq which means to laugh, to joke, to make sport. I found this interesting, because Isaac’s name (יִצְחָק / Yitschaq) also means “he laughs.” Thus, this sentence can be rendered as, “He-laughs, laughed with his wife, Rebekah.”
I found that wording, “he-laughs, laughed,” a bit amusing, but really didn’t think anything more of it at the time. I have given it some thought since, and I think it is actually a beautiful, poetic testament to the love that Isaac and Rebekah had for one another.
First, some context. Isaac and Rebekah’s union seems to have been a particularly charmed relationship. First, Abraham’s servant was led to her by a sign from God, showing that this was literally a match made in heaven. Then, for their first meeting, Rebekah was riding through the field where Isaac was meditating and we hear how they both raised their eyes, saw one another, and she hurried off her camel to go meet him. It is as close as the Bible gets to saying it was love at first sight! Then, when the two of them were married, we are simply told, “and she became his wife; and he loved her.” Unlike his father or his sons, we never hear of another wife for Isaac, Rebekah was his sole companion to the very end.
Now, let us go back to the phrase, “He-laughs, laughed with his wife, Rebekah.” Rebekah was literally fulfilling Isaac’s identity! He-laughs was laughing, and he was laughing with his wife. She was bringing out his true, authentic self, his core identity, and the fact that they were a perfect complement to one another was so obvious to the king of the Philistines, that when he saw them together in this manner he immediately intuited that they were husband and wife. The two were genuine soulmates.
The Bible has all manner of stories in its pages. Tales of tremendous sacrifice, of lives being transformed, of rousing battles, and of great teachings. Perhaps most sweetly, though, it also has stories of deep, fulfilling love, of two people perfectly complementing one another, of two becoming one.
Lying is evil. Stealing is evil. Murder is evil. These are functions of the wicked, not of the good.
If all evil behaviors belong to the wicked, and are eschewed by the good, then it logically follows that the wicked will afflict all these evils upon the good, tormenting them even unto death.
To be righteous is therefore to accept all the evil of the world, while denying oneself any opportunity to retaliate in kind. It therefore follows that evil will naturally triumph over good, as it can murder the righteous, but the righteous cannot murder the wicked.
That being said, triumph is good. Resurrection is good. Salvation is good. These are states of the righteous, not of the wicked.
If all good outcomes belong to the righteous, and are denied to the wicked, then it logically follows that the righteous will overcome all the afflictions of the wicked, even being raised from the dead.
To be righteous is therefore to accept all the evil of the world, but then being raised above it all. It therefore follows that good will ultimately triumph over evil, as it can overcome evil, but the evil cannot overcome the good.
Sometimes we pine in the wilderness of our sin and shame, crying for some act of God to show us that we are still loved, even in spite of our wickedness. And, in some cases, maybe that really is what we need. But sometimes, in those situations, what we really need is to know that we can still love, even in spite of our wickedness.
I discovered this for myself recently, when I felt shut in a small room where I could not feel God’s light, even though all my past experiences told me that He still cared for and wanted me. As I prayed for Him to come and find me, I felt instead the urge to start singing. I was guided to a hymn I had never heard before, My Jesus, I Love Thee, and as I sang my redeclaration of love to my savior I felt my cold heart come back to life.
Knowing that God loves us is good, and is the first great testimony that we all require. But after that, the next great testimony is to know that there is an eternal goodness within us that we cannot kill. We need to remember our own spark of divinity, and have faith in ourselves to be better again. We need to learn, as I did that dark day turned bright, that even in the depths of our greatest shame we still have the ability to exclaim, “if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”
Spiritual Wanderings 