Hebrews 11:1

While reading through Rich Diamond’s book Wrestling With God I was struck by the following paragraph:

There’s a story from the book The Holy Man by Susan Trott in which people walk by the holy man they’ve come to seek because they’re just so intent on seeing what they think is a holy man. This guy just looks like the caretaker at the monestary. They walk right by him and he ushers them through the building, shows them the rooms, and leads them out the back door, smiling and wishing them well. A few people realize he is the holy man, but only a few, because they’re the ones who pay attention.

How do we know we don’t come in contact with God on a daily basis? If we were to run into God, would he be impressed that we’re living by his principles or disappointed that we’re instead holding firm to a bunch of old church cliches?

By Rich Diamond in “Wrestling With God”

Shrek is a lot like us; we believe in the hopefulness of the fairy tale and the love story; but we also like that it’s irrelevant and admits that life isn’t all sweetness. Shrek starts in an outhouse and ends in an onion, but it’s an onion wedding carriage. That makes sense. True love is a big onion.

The life we’re constructing not isn’t safe or perfect, but it’s what we know. And we try to be honest about what we’ve got to work with. It’s like a situation comedy but one where a guy stands offstage with a machine gun.

We fantasize that we’re like the models, or the movie stars, or the sports heroes. That someday we’ll be on Survivor or American Idol. That getting up, going to school or work, hanging out with friends, is enough. Go shopping. Read. And it’s good. It’s fine. To make that life more pleasant, we buy more toys – music, entertainment centers, sports equipment, cars, houses, cigarettes, vacations, power, stuff, more channels. And we spend some time there for awhile. It’s fun. But we can also tell that we’re not building anything. Which is okay on the short run. And right now feels like the short run. No hurry yet.

Some days, though, we feel a little like Edward Norton in Fight Club. We’ve filled our apartment with great and beautiful crap from upscale catalogues and malls, but there is a yawning black hole in our head. In his case, he responds with violence and schizophrenia. But surely that’s not necessarily theonly alternative. We can do both, right? Balance between getting stuff and enjoying life, and also waiting to see if anything more lasting comes up.

So we keep looking for “it.” most days, we find ourselves just doing life. And that’s really, honestly, enough for right now. And, seriously, that’s okay. But at the same time, all along, you may be like me. I keep listening, at least a little here and there, for something behind or below the noise of my everyday life.

By Winn Collier

A while back, we got a new bedtime books at our house, 1,000 Things to Know About Animals. Giraffes and monkeys and cute little webbed feet penguins, our sons enjoy them all. However, the boys prefer the frightening creatures. Crocodiles with powerful jaws. Vampire bats with eerie eyes. Copperheads. Tarantulas. The more poisonous, the more hideous, the better.

The pictures and the fascination with all things gory prompted Seth, three at the time, to pose a troublesome question. “Why did God make scary stuff?” A conversation on the origin of evil…with a preschooler.

Growing older, however, doesn’t silence the question. A bridge collapses inMinnesota. A crisis escalates in Darfur. A region in the Middle East seems (again) like it might spiral into chaos. God, why all the “scary stuff”?

Scripture provides some clarity. God did not intend or create evil. A mutinous angel rebelled, choosing humanity and the earth as the fulcrum of his insurgency. Forced into the fray, we routinely choose the mutiny, against God. We often invite evil.

The result, however, was that evil did not remain merely in the isolated sphere of individual choices (either of angels or humans). Like a dirty needle pumping heroine into the bloodstream, this rebellion straight-lined evil into the created order. Our planet is now riddled with the foul stench. Disease. Greed. Ruin. Can anyone truthfully look at the human race and the mess we’ve made of our planet and believe our problem is merely cosmetic?

Evil is certainly not all we see in our world. Grace and beauty and kindness abound. However, everywhere we look, we see evil’s imprint. Loneliness. Deception. Abandoned children. Shattered marriages. Hungry nations. How can our sickness be healed? How can evil’s dark stain be removed?

Strangely, the Apostle Peter offers hope via a blistering, apocalyptic picture. The heavens will vaporize with an ear-splitting roar. Falling to the earth, fire will scorch the sky. The earth’s raw chemical elements will liquefy like wax dripping from a candle. “God is going to destroy everything like this…” says Peter.(II Peter 3:11)

But destruction is not the point. With God, destruction never holds center stage. God always moves toward redemption. The devastation will work to clear the brush, to remove all the malignant infection evil has cultivated. Destruction will offer a severe mercy. With power and fire and swift, final authority, God will reach into the bowels of the earth and wrench evil’s grip free, once and for all.

This cataclysmic work is not a final destruction, the earth done and finished. Far from it. The destruction breeds new life. It will be a (do we even have language for such a thing?) creative destruction. From the devastation, God will create again, refashioning the earth once considered ruined into the kind of world He wanted in the beginning. We will enjoy the wonder of “a new heaven and a new earth.”(II Peter 3:13)

On this new earth, there will be no disease, no sorrow. No one hungry. No one lonely. The lion will lay down with the lamb. Not a single hint of “scary stuff.”

Many of us are kept back from spiritual progress and amendment of life because we fear the difficulties we are sure to meet and the effort it will cost us to overcome them. Nevertheless, the one who makes progress in the spiritual life is the very one who vigorously and strenuously strives to overcome these seemingly impossible obstacles. Both profit and merit are greater when we overcome ourselves and subject our will to our spirit. -Thomas à Kempis

I find that Thomas’ words haunt me. They challenge me to my core. I’m challenged because they speak directly to me. There are a lot of things I see in myself that I dislike. I think if we were honest, we would all say that there are things in our lives that we wish weren’t there, but for some reason we don’t know how to shake them. I think Paul summed it up well in Romans 7 when he said something to the effect of “the things that I want to do, I do not do, and those things that I hate, I do.” – William Nelson

Love God. Start there. End there. Live there.

God is the reason you are on this planet and He is the reason you are reading this book. Tell Him so, without fanfare or waving your arms in the air. Tell God you love Him, that you want to know His presence all the time. When you wake up in the morning, thank God for the day. When you go to sleep at night, thank God for the day behind you and the night ahead. Thank God for sheets and pillows. Thank God for your spouse and the smell of her hair and the feel of her back pressed against your chest.

As you move through the day, be aware of God. Thank God for the teeth you are brushing. Thank God for the school you attend or the job you have to go to. When your boss yells, thank God for the pay cheque. Say grace over your meals. If it’s winter, feel the cold air as it enters the lungs that God gave you and thank Him for the air. Think about the creativity involved in designing snowflakes. If it is summer, thank God for the warmth of the sun on your skin.

Are you getting the idea? Make God a part of your every day. Many people don’t think about God until Sunday, and then they wonder: “God, where have You been? I’ve had such a crummy week.” Then God is out of their life for another seven days. You don’t have to recite a prayer before you switch the station on the car radio. But make yourself aware that God made music. You don’t have to go into a lengthy theological dissertation before making a copy of the annual report, but remember that God is in charge of all things.

These little “flirts” with God need only be a moment. But they must be a part of your life to attain the presence of God.

By Steve Case in “God Is Here”

What got my attention was that the Jesus I read about was a wild, free spirit who went to parties and refused to be religious. He broke rules, touched people He wasn’t supposed to, hung out with thieves and whores. I wondered if that was really true; I always thought that Jesus was the stained-glass wimp in church windows. It is possible God is passionate and involved? Is it possible that God isn’t about doctrines and regulations, but that Jesus lived a life like mine, only a few thousand years earlier?It honestly seems ridiculously impossible.

By Rich Diamond in Wrestling With God

I can feel my life, like a tide running in and out past and around my legs as I’m standing in ocean water up to my waist. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, just back and forth. But I can also feel, if I watch and pay attention, that there are tides. They move. If I just play and drift along, I’ll wake up miles way from where I started. If I stand out here long enough without remembering where I am, I’ll be swept out too far. I’ll have missed it, whatever it is. So I tread water and keep my head high enough to breathe. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll pick my feet up, see if there’s something worth swimming toward for a little while and see where the tide takes me.

By Rich Diamond in “Wrestling With God”