The Geometry of Love

What is the shape of Christ’s love?
What are its dimensions?

“And I pray that you , being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…” (Ephesians 3:17-18, NIV)

The love of Christ is wide. 
It is expansive and far-reaching. It is broad and encompassing. It goes out of bounds. Like the horizon, where earth meets sky, it is endless in both directions.

The love of Christ is long.
It infinitely unravels from an eternal spool. It has been forever before me and will be after me forever. It does not expire. It does not run out. It endures.

The love of Christ is high.
It is upward. It is ascending. It is the penthouse suite and the elevator that takes me there. It is a wall my heart can scale for eternity and never reach the top.

The love of Christ is deep.
It is penetrating. It plunges to the pit of me.  It is intrepid.  It goes where no other love dares to go. There is no part of me that is too far, too hidden, or too dark.

The love of Christ is wide enough to reach everyone, long enough to last forever, high enough to lift our spirits, and deep enough to reach the most buried parts of our souls. May we grasp the dimensions of the love of Christ.

Still. Guaranteed.

This morning I did something I haven’t done in a while. I woke up, rolled over, and opened my Bible. I read the first chapter of Ephesians.

That whole thing about the Holy Spirit being a seal or deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance…
I don’t think I’ve ever really paid much attention to that. But this morning, I found comfort in it. Because every time I encounter the Holy Spirit in my life, it should remind me that I belong to God. That I still belong to God. That there is more to come and that this is just the beginning.

So, today, I thank God for marking me and claiming me as His own. I thank God for still being with me. I thank God for the guarantee of a future of fullness and redemption. Oh, for joy!

Why is it Hard to Hear God?

I read lips more than I realize. How do I know this? Well, because if someone is talking to me and I can’t see them, I have a hard time hearing them. Strange, really. Of course, my hearing ability has not actually changed….but apparently my hearing process is partly visual. Hmm…

So, why is it hard to hear God? Umm, well for starters I can’t see God. I miss the whole lip-reading part of hearing.

But I also think God is in the habit of talking softly. (By the way, I’m just Pentecostal enough to believe that people can, like, actually hear God.)  I read Psalm 29 this morning. Turns out, the voice of God can snap trees in half, flatten a forest, and shake a desert.  Good times.

I think it’s hard to hear God because I would be totally twisted, flattened, snapped in half, and undone if God did spoke to me in anything above a faint whisper. Sometimes he does speak louder, and it does undo me. While it can be frustrating to feel like I cannot hear God, I think it would be equally frustrating to constantly collapse under the weight of His voice. So, I am thankful for the gentle, soft whispers of a tender God.

Bizarre Faith

Mine is a strange faith. The Bible really, truly is bizarre. This morning, I read from the gospel of Luke about when the ladies went to the tomb of Jesus and these glowing men (literally glowing) tell them that Jesus isn’t in the tomb anymore because he’s alive.  Then I read the first four chapters of Exodus. Got to the part about God talking to Moses from a fire in a bush. I mean, this shit is crazy.

I had a moment of “epistemological rolling” (or perhaps plain incredulity), wherein I was able, just for a moment, to interrogate my own knowledge.  And in that moment, my faith seemed absurd and strange to me. Why is it that I really believe that this guy died and then came back to life??  Why is it that I believe that Moses heard God talking to him through fire?  It is all very strange, and I can’t decide if my faith is miraculous or ridiculous.

I think it would be easier to be Buddhist or something. They don’t seem to believe outrageous things. Yet, I cannot escape this faith. Even as I expand and open myself to other spiritual modalities, I feel profoundly tethered to this bizarre and beautiful Jesus.

What if Jesus is NOT the Center of Our Faith??

I had a disturbing and fascinating thought the other night: What if Jesus is not the center of my faith?  I wasn’t sure whether to mentally back away slowly from the disturbing question or tip-toe up to and gently prod the question.  I prodded.

The idea of Jesus NOT being the center of my faith is, in many ways, quite crazy. I believe Jesus is the Messiah. I love and worship and follow Jesus.  In that sense, he IS indeed the center of my faith. But in another sense, he is not.  How often did Jesus preach about himself?  Not that often, in comparison to how often he preached about the KINGDOM. I want to be all about Jesus…BUT I also want to be all about whatever Jesus was about…which was not himself.  What was Jesus about?  The kingdom of God.

Modern Christianity has often made forgiveness of sins the main thing.  Forgiveness of sins is undoubtedly important, crucial even.  But maybe it is so crucial because, without this forgiveness, we cannot access the bigger main thing, which is the kingdom.  I don’t want to downplay the atonement or the importance of a personal relationship with God.  But what would happen if instead of viewing Jesus as the centerpoint of a set of religious beliefs and practices, we viewed Jesus as the entry point into a whole new and beautiful way of living and relating with each other and with God?  What if?

What Do I Owe God?

My theology gets tangled up.

Growing up, I was taught that God graciously saved me, so I owe Him a life of obedience in response.  I’ve been reading Jay Bakker’s book Fall to Grace.  I think his approach is different: God graciously saves…and there’s nothing we can do to pay him back. But if we will accept that we are accepted, then God’s grace transforms us into people who live in a way that reflects the character of God.

I can’t get my mind around a grace that wants nothing from me.

I know that salvation is free. Salvation must be free. I can never be good enough or do enough good works to earn God’s salvation.  But what about after salvation?  Then what?  Is it like probationary admission to college?  You know, they admit you into the college even though your GPA is not up to par or whatever, but then you are expected to perform at a certain level…is that what this is like?  You “get in” for free but then you must make the grade.

I get all religious and knotty when I think about a radical grace.  I’m bewildered by it. And afraid of it.  I don’t know how it works.  I desperately want to comprehend and apprehend this grace in a way I never have before. What would my life look like if I lived as though Jesus had indeed paid it all?

Sh** Happens (A Lesson from Ecclesiastes)

 

There’s so much truth in the book of Ecclesiastes, you would think the apostle Paul wrote it!  *Cymbal*  That was  a joke.
How ’bout this…

“The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.”

Here in America, we subscribe to a deeply ingrained ethos that says if you work hard, you will be rewarded. That if you do good, good will come to you.  That people will get what they deserve.  And many have Christianized this ethos (Protestant work ethic, anyone?). But the writer of Ecclesiastes says something quite different…
Sometimes the fastest person doesn’t win the race.
Sometimes the strong person doesn’t win the battle.
You can be brilliant, and educated, and talented, and NOT get what you (perhaps) deserve.
Turns out TIME and CHANCE jump into everyone’s equation.
In other words, shit happens!

There is an element of life that is unpredictable, incongruent, and perhaps even unfair.  And as I meditate on this, I want to drop these words into my theology like food coloring into a glass of water and watch the hue change.

But We DO Know the Path of the Wind!

I sat on the patio this morning and read from Ecclesiastes…which is quite possibly my favorite part of the whole Bible. Ecclesiastes is part cynicism, part realism, part hedonism, part humility, and part reverence. And altogether wise. Love it.  And so, I think I will revisit Ecclesiastes via a series of blog posts inspired by my readings.

Today, I want to talk about the wind.

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)

I think the point of this verse is that there are some things that we cannot fully understand; nevertheless, we embrace the mystery of it.  We do not know how God works, but we let it. We let Him. It just is. Mysterious and good.

BUT!  The problem is that we DO in fact know the path of the wind!  In fact, meteorologists tell us every day which way the wind will blow.  And scientists CAN explain the development of the fetus!  Technology and knowledge progress so rapidly these days.  Where does mystery fit into our lives?  Does mystery fit into our lives?  We’ve figured everything else out…what could be so amazing about the workings of God?

I think we need to keep mystery in our lives. Mystery inspires us. Mystery stirs up reverence and awe within us.  And there is always something much bigger than us that we do not understand and something much smaller than us that we don’t understand.  There are still things in the world (or perhaps beyond the world) that we cannot measure, predict, comprehend, or control.  Whatever those things might be, let them serve as a reminder to us that  God is big and small and wild and mysterious and GOOD.

Notes to Myself

I found some old speaking notes tucked in the back of my journal.
The notes were for a sermon I was slated to deliver to a group of young adults a few years ago.
I did deliver a sermon, but not on the topic scribbled out in these notes.
In fact, I’ve never used these (SIX pages!) of notes.

The message was about God’s absence, silence, and lateness.
I think God has continued to teach me about that in the time since I first wrote those notes.
And I can’t help but wonder if God had me write a sermon three years ago that I would need to preach to myself today.

 

Get to Your Own Land

God spoke something to me recently.
I found myself reading Deuteronomy 2.
I let that 7th verse wash over me with comfort and assurance.
And I continued reading.
The Israelites wandered through the desert.
On their way, they passed by many peoples in many lands.
And each time, the Lord told them to leave the people alone, for He would not give the Israelites any of those people’s land.

So it is with me.  The Holy Spirit told me that I would pass by many folks who already have what it is that I long for. But to keep going.  Keep going through the desert and get to my own land that the Lord has set aside for me.