An Essay from the Past.

Temptations?

 

For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about a book I have read called The Shack. And what I am about to say is in no way intended to be critical of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the images of God as someone with whom I could talk or with whom I could eat a meal. No, what I was thinking about was my tendency to want to take some kind of shortcut to knowing God. From every term such as “the elect” or the “chosen” to a number like 100,000 or some other number or denomination, it seems everyone wants in on the ground floor of being in God’s good graces—not only “predestined” but already on safe and sure footing with the One Who reigns. Now, that is not to deny the gift of grace or salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but this sense of “knowing” that we desire—ok, that I particularly desire—seems to haunt us if we consider life and how we live it.

 

When I was a child, my dad read something from the Bible concerning what God had already chosen for me to do in my lifetime. I may not remember Dad’s exact words, but I know that he meant for me to consider that each thing I did for others or for this poor ole world was just there as an opportunity that God had planned out for me. Not everyone was going to have the same resources that I had been given, so God expected me to use those resources for others because HE had so desired when He put those opportunities in my way. If I did not do the good things that I could, I would not be hurting God or others, but I was denying myself the good that would come of feeling a job had been done well. It seems to me that Dad said that learning to do my job well was a pathway to learning how to love—and that since God was love, I could get to know Him through learning more about love itself.

 

These thoughts brought me almost full circle to wondering if I should not be just learning to love rather than trying to “see” something about a relationship with God Himself. I remember the scripture that said we were not to feel proud of whatever we did simply because that was our duty. If I am too concerned with understanding more about God, will I shortchange my attempts to do whatever needs to be done in an effort to arrange some shortcut to knowledge? To arrange that understanding might not even be part of my job. But I still feel that tendency to want to know more, to feel closer and more comfortable and secure. I immediately think of that old hymn about standing on the rock. When I tried to climb up Enchanted Rock down in the Hill Country recently, I found that the surface was not only pretty forbidding, but the information at the Ranger station said that the part that actually stood above ground was only a tiny portion of the rock underneath that spread for at least 100 miles around under ground level! Yes, the view was breathtaking, but I did not understand much about the rock itself until it was explained and presented as part of a much larger picture. That seems to be my concept of God. Wherever I stand, so much more is beneath me and around me that I cannot imagine! And that huge rock is just a tiny portion of His creation.

 

Day by day, and maybe effort by effort, I will continue to try to do my job as I understand it. And when the larger picture is explained to me—or even if it is not explained—I hope to be able to look back with some degree of satisfaction and say that I have climbed about as far as I was able; I was able to serve as well as I knew how. Some of the shortcuts to satisfaction may still tempt me, but those temptations won’t take the place of trying to love in the way that I was taught from a child. I have never been an eagle, but I still enjoy my vision of the heavens above.