God is Different Than a Chicken
Loving God is hard. You probably read that and say, "duh." If you read the holocaust compilation post you know what I am talking about. In my experience loving God is one of those things that has become very easy to talk about. I grew up in church; it has been drilled into my head. Hearing people say, "that ole So-and-so, he really loves the Lord!" "Bro. Whatnot, he's a great man of faith, really loves the Lord." "That deacon Whimsy, great man of God, really loves the Lord." Hear it long enough and you begin to think, "well I want to be a great man of God, so I better love the Lord too." Not that there's anything wrong with that, the great commandment says love the Lord.
In fact, I believe we are created to have a love relationship with God. So, don't get me wrong and am not trashing Deacon Whimsy, Bro. Whatnot and ole So-and-so. They may have truly loved the Lord. What I am trying to do is make a distinction between what it means to truly love the Lord and what it means to pay lip service to a concept that we all accept.
Loving God is truly hard. There are a number of things that work against us. The least of which is the fact that we cannot see, touch, go out to lunch , go bowling, play ball, etc. etc. with God like we could with a group of friends. He is here, there, and around back, I mean He's God. He exist in an entirely different way than we fully understand. But anyway, we could get much too deep if I don't stop that little metaphysical excursion. Simple put, we might say God exist in a way that is different than a chicken.
So, I have had a realization. We say we love God and just a few seconds after we find ourselves doing something that seems to disprove what just came from our mouth. I am no exception, my selfishness, boneheadedness, and general I don't care what you say this time is mine ways trouble me greatly, at least after the fact. I have struggled with this contradiction in my life. I do Love the Lord, but sometimes I seem to love myself more. What do you do? I ask myself, in my case I am a minister, we are suppose to be above loving ourselves more than God. We are supposed to know what and how to do what needs to be done to live up to Bro. Whatnot's example.
God showed me something today. Those of you that know me know I have a son. He is quite young. He has been having a tuff time as of late with new teeth and a runny nose. New teeth hurt young gums and a runny nose makes it hard for him to rest. So he has been a bit fussy. Today he was playing and having a grand time standing up, it's a big deal for an eight month old. He played so hard he got tired and cranky, as is common custom for his people. At the same time I wanted to eat. My boy pulled himself up on the coffee table, got wobbly, and fell down. He had enough of such trauma, so he just lay there and cried. So, I picked him up, he sat in my lap and calmed down. I knew he was tired, I knew he needed sleep, he, on the other hand, had not yet figured this out. So he sat there, not crying, but just tired and grumpy. I wanted to eat and also have a little time to myself; I do enjoy eating my whole lunch without interruption. Like I said, I knew he was tired, so I waited. I wanted to eat, but I knew if I held him a while he would calm down and fall off to sleep. Then I would have an hour or so to eat and do what ever else needed to be done. So I waited. It took him a while, but he did eventually go to sleep.
So, I love my boy. I wait on him to sleep before I eat. I have needs that don't get met when I wait on him, but I love him, so I wait. This is want God showed me today concerning loving Him. I sat there on the couch wanting my boy to sleep. I sat there on the couch wanting to eat. It became very real to me that I could but my needs, wants, desires aside to wait on my boy, who I can see, touch, and at some point in the future go out to lunch, go bowling, play ball, etc. etc. with. But with God I just allow myself to forget. Chase my desire, then go ops I forgot, that's a sin, sorry God. I can love my boy by putting aside my desires until he lets me go, but I do so poorly putting aside my desires until He says its ok.
I for one am tired of lip service. No more selfish Kevin, right? Probably not, I am, after all, a self-proclaimed bonehead. But it is good to have a better understanding of Loving God. It takes sacrifice. Look pastyour desires and love.
Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! Romans 13:14 (The Message)
Loving God is hard. You probably read that and say, "duh." If you read the holocaust compilation post you know what I am talking about. In my experience loving God is one of those things that has become very easy to talk about. I grew up in church; it has been drilled into my head. Hearing people say, "that ole So-and-so, he really loves the Lord!" "Bro. Whatnot, he's a great man of faith, really loves the Lord." "That deacon Whimsy, great man of God, really loves the Lord." Hear it long enough and you begin to think, "well I want to be a great man of God, so I better love the Lord too." Not that there's anything wrong with that, the great commandment says love the Lord.
In fact, I believe we are created to have a love relationship with God. So, don't get me wrong and am not trashing Deacon Whimsy, Bro. Whatnot and ole So-and-so. They may have truly loved the Lord. What I am trying to do is make a distinction between what it means to truly love the Lord and what it means to pay lip service to a concept that we all accept.
Loving God is truly hard. There are a number of things that work against us. The least of which is the fact that we cannot see, touch, go out to lunch , go bowling, play ball, etc. etc. with God like we could with a group of friends. He is here, there, and around back, I mean He's God. He exist in an entirely different way than we fully understand. But anyway, we could get much too deep if I don't stop that little metaphysical excursion. Simple put, we might say God exist in a way that is different than a chicken.
So, I have had a realization. We say we love God and just a few seconds after we find ourselves doing something that seems to disprove what just came from our mouth. I am no exception, my selfishness, boneheadedness, and general I don't care what you say this time is mine ways trouble me greatly, at least after the fact. I have struggled with this contradiction in my life. I do Love the Lord, but sometimes I seem to love myself more. What do you do? I ask myself, in my case I am a minister, we are suppose to be above loving ourselves more than God. We are supposed to know what and how to do what needs to be done to live up to Bro. Whatnot's example.
God showed me something today. Those of you that know me know I have a son. He is quite young. He has been having a tuff time as of late with new teeth and a runny nose. New teeth hurt young gums and a runny nose makes it hard for him to rest. So he has been a bit fussy. Today he was playing and having a grand time standing up, it's a big deal for an eight month old. He played so hard he got tired and cranky, as is common custom for his people. At the same time I wanted to eat. My boy pulled himself up on the coffee table, got wobbly, and fell down. He had enough of such trauma, so he just lay there and cried. So, I picked him up, he sat in my lap and calmed down. I knew he was tired, I knew he needed sleep, he, on the other hand, had not yet figured this out. So he sat there, not crying, but just tired and grumpy. I wanted to eat and also have a little time to myself; I do enjoy eating my whole lunch without interruption. Like I said, I knew he was tired, so I waited. I wanted to eat, but I knew if I held him a while he would calm down and fall off to sleep. Then I would have an hour or so to eat and do what ever else needed to be done. So I waited. It took him a while, but he did eventually go to sleep.
So, I love my boy. I wait on him to sleep before I eat. I have needs that don't get met when I wait on him, but I love him, so I wait. This is want God showed me today concerning loving Him. I sat there on the couch wanting my boy to sleep. I sat there on the couch wanting to eat. It became very real to me that I could but my needs, wants, desires aside to wait on my boy, who I can see, touch, and at some point in the future go out to lunch, go bowling, play ball, etc. etc. with. But with God I just allow myself to forget. Chase my desire, then go ops I forgot, that's a sin, sorry God. I can love my boy by putting aside my desires until he lets me go, but I do so poorly putting aside my desires until He says its ok.
I for one am tired of lip service. No more selfish Kevin, right? Probably not, I am, after all, a self-proclaimed bonehead. But it is good to have a better understanding of Loving God. It takes sacrifice. Look pastyour desires and love.
Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! Romans 13:14 (The Message)
posted by Kevin at
3:12 PM
3 Comments:
So today kicked my butt. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that God definitely humbled me today and I didn't really react in a way that glorified Him. Rather, i got prideful and stupid allowed my circumstances to dictate my reactions.
Anywho, I say that cuz I think we all have trouble sometimes loving others through loving God. I don't think the love for God ever really leaves... it's more like an "I don't like you very much right now so I won't act like I love you" kinda thing. I think God's eternally patient with us, and (as Pastor Don put it once) He is the eternal gentleman and will stand at the door to your heart forever and knock.
There's no excuse for me reacting the way I reacted today, but in a strange way I know that even me realizing that is God working in me through it. We have an all-trnscendent and supremely intimate Father who loves us unconditionally. As Five Iron Frenzy sings, "Freedom means love without condition, without a beginning or an end." He is our Abba, our dad, daddy, papa, or what have you. In the same moment I feel Him rebuking me and also looking down and smiling and telling me He's proud of the man I am and of the one I'm becoming. We never stop learning or growing.
John Wesly believed (and I sort of agree with him) that salvation is a lifelong thing. We are continually being perfected in Christ. That process begins when we accept Christ as our savior, and won't end until our faith is perfected when we see God in Heaven. Until then, we will fail, and we will triumph. Martin Luther said, "Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world."
God works in ways that we cannot determine. It is an amazing thing to watch. You cannot really put your finger on it, but you see Him. God has really been working on me lately about love. It is good to hear these stories about how God works in the lives of others. It is most cedrtian that love is not easy. We mess up. But we also love. Seems people are messy.
Loving God by loving people IS hard! He forgives us when we don't, but I for one still feel like dirt when I fail spectacularly (and believe me, I do). I have kids walk through my door every day who are HARD to love. Some I have a hard time speaking kindly to, much less showing love to. I hate that. I dog myself b/c I think, "You signed on for this! These tough-to-love kids are the ones you decided you wanted to be a teacher for, so you could be at least one kind presence in their lives. You're supposed to love them." But then I stay up too late at night and wake up tired, get busy with the 25 zillion little things that teachers have to do, start drowning in yearbook business or TV hassles, end up frazzled and distracted, and forget about love. Until, out of nowhere, I hear things like, "Would you just shut up," "I don't really care what you're excuse is," or (embarrasingly) "Please, prove you're smarter than a carrot and stop that!" coming out of my mouth in this godawful shrill voice, and I realize that I've forgotten all about that love thing and turned into some mean teacher-monster whose name I don't even want to know.
I find myself daily having to go to God broken, humbled, regretful, and struggling to find a way to love the children who seem to do everything they can to keep me from loving them. I react badly all the time. I hate that about me. But I find God constantly chiseling away at my heart, smoothing out the roughness, shaving off the selfishness, peeling away the layers of arrogance and frustration and bitterness, and I know that-one day-I'm going to walk into His presence exactly the person He's been making me into all my life.
It is in those moments, more than any other, when I see how His forgiveness really does change my life, change who I am and what I'm like. Apparently (and I didn't know this about myself until I started teaching) when left to my own devices I'm not really a very nice person. God, however, isn't going to leave me to my own devices! Thank Him, He does stand eternally and knock, waiting for me to turn to Him and ask not "how am I supposed to love ______," but rather, "God, You love _______ so please help me see them like You do." And, day-by-day, I become a new person, one who isn't as mean, who tries a little harder to speak lovingly, who thinks more about spending enough time with God to have it really change me for the better.
This is a long and rambling response, which really was just intended to agree with Kyle and say that God uses even our stinky, ugly failures to show us exactly how He loves us, and reveal to us the ways in which a relationship with Him is the most vital thing we can ever have. He loves us like crazy, like a dad who never forgets the first time his little one said "I love you, daddy." If we can hang onto that, someday maybe we'll actually get good at loving Him through loving others. Or maybe we'll just learn to keep trying.
EVIE
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