God is not the Defendant

I am a huge fan of Boundless Webzine. I find their writing insightful and consistent with scripture. I came across article tonight that demands your attention. Ironically enough, I am currently reading The Shack to see what all the fuss is about. Enjoy this article by Gary Thomas.

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God's Not the Defendant
by Gary Thomas

"But what was God doing before He created the world?" a skeptic once asked Augustine, the famous 5th century bishop.

"Creating hell for people who ask stupid questions like that," the esteemed Augustine replied.
One of the many memorable lessons I learned from my theological mentor Dr. J.I. Packer was our obligation to accept the mystery of God and His refusal to answer every question we might ask of Him. The book of Job is forcefully clear: God does not feel obligated to answer a question just because we might ask it. Great thinkers such as Augustine and Packer lived with a humble, submissive willingness to accept this side of God.

Fewer and fewer today seem to be so humble. If we have a question, God must provide the answer.

How else to explain the unfathomable popularity of The Shack, a self-published novel by William Young, selling more than one million copies in its first year of publication?

The Ten Commandments begin with an overarching claim on our curiosity: Don't mess with the Godhead. It's the first commandment, and therefore of utmost importance. "Not taking the Lord's name in vain" and not creating idols in his image goes far beyond swear words and the actual construction of gold or wooden "deities." It's a call to respect the nature of God as He reveals himself, and a refusal to speculate beyond what He gives us.

Centuries of Jews have refrained from even speaking or writing out God's name, for fear of violating the respectful distance with which God asks us to think of Him — and now a Christian writer presents God the Father as a black woman who starts out talking ghetto, the Holy Spirit as a Ghost-like Asian woman, and then all but "channels" them by giving them long streams of dialogue, some of which directly contradicts long-held Christian beliefs. If this doesn't violate the letter of the first commandment, it at least impinges on the spirit.

But maybe I'm taking all this too seriously. After all, everyone says, it's fiction. Putting aside the fact that so was The Last Temptation of Christ, I want to go back and ask why anyone would want to re-depict the Godhead? God as He reveals Himself through His words and ways in the Old Testament, and through His incarnate form in the New, is so beautiful and perfect, what makes anyone think they could do a better job? God our Father is so wonderful in His love, authority, power, and rule; God the Holy Spirit first convicts us, and then comforts and teaches us; God the Son defines Himself as humble (Matt. 11:29) — imagine that; the God of the universe, humble! — and gentle (also Matt. 11:29), while bold enough to take on the Pharisees and the political rulers.

Who can do better than this? And why do so many readers say they've been waiting for this?
I don't mean to sound harsh here, but if you can't fall in love with the God of the Bible, you don't need a new depiction; you need a new heart. I understand how someone who has never known God, and whose heart is hostile toward God, can look in the pages of Scripture and despise Him. What I don't understand is how someone who truly knows God, and who has been reconciled to God, can think that a ghost-like depiction of the Holy Spirit, a re-creation of God the Father as a cliché-speaking, slap-happy kitchen cook, and Jesus as a somewhat dopey and clumsy helper makes Him more accessible and interesting.

C.S. Lewis brilliantly avoids these problems in The Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan represents the incarnate Christ in another world, a Christ who occasionally strikes fear while simultaneously offering gentle intimacy. Lewis wisely avoids depicting an incarnate Father and an incarnate Holy Spirit, and he doesn't have Aslan throw out theological zingers that challenge 2,000 years of orthodox Christian teaching.

The Wrong Question

There's another serious issue in The Shack that defies the mystery of faith: In essence, the book puts God on trial. The narrator's main contention against God is this (paraphrased): "You've created and/or allowed a world that has hurt me deeply; what do you have to say for yourself? Why should I believe in you anymore?"

Tragically, and perhaps even heretically, Young has God respond, "OK; let me explain myself to you as best you can understand it."

For 2,000 years, Christians have believed that God sent His Son because He put us on trial and found us wanting. The proper response of humans is, "I have sinned and fallen short of Your glory. Have mercy on me." Today's believer and non-believer is far more likely to respond, "There's evil in the world; God, if You really exist, explain Yourself!"

As a man who has sinned and who continues to sin, how dare I judge God for allowing sin? To destroy all sin, He would have to destroy me, as I continue to sin on a daily basis. At the very least, He would have to remove all whispers of any notion of free will; and without free will, would I still be made in the image of God?

Again, I can understand how someone who hasn't been regenerated by the Holy Spirit can live in hostility and anger toward God. What I don't get is how someone can be genuinely convicted of their sin — to the extent that they see it as God sees it, in all its depravity — be truly forgiven, having the weight of this sin and rebellion removed, knowing that now, because of Christ, every thought God has toward us is one of tender mercy; and then, on top of all this, getting to walk in fellowship with God every day, being comforted in our sorrows, convicted in our sins, taught in our ignorance, encouraged by His kindness, supported in His love; how can one of God's children truly experience all this and even dare to ask God to account for Himself? Every moment we live in peace with God and outside of hell is a moment we don't deserve; the thought of taking God to task for anything else is beyond me.

I confess that I don't understand this sense of entitlement, in large part because of how brilliantly God has addressed the problem of evil. God made provision for the sin of unbelievers to be dealt with justly in hell, and for the sin of believers to be dealt with on the cross. It's a brilliant, comprehensive plan that preserves the necessary free will inherent in beings made in the image of God himself. Does anyone seriously have a better plan?

It's not just that I take issue with The Shack's answers (though I do, and vehemently so). It's that I take issue with its questions. Job had a lot of questions to ask God, and he asked them in an impertinent manner. Instead of answering Job's questions, as "Papa" does in The Shack, God responded, "Listen now, and I will speak. I will question you, and you shall answer me." And Job's holy and healthy response was, "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job. 42:4, 6).

True enough, the Psalms pose many of these same questions, but for the most part they are resolved in a spirit of humility, surrender, and worship — not with wild speculation, and not by channeling God until Papa and Jesus sound like two guests on the Oprah Winfrey show.
It is also very significant that you don't find the writers of the New Testament voicing these same questions. In the age of the church, an age in which God's own Spirit resides in us, an age in which we can be uniquely reconciled to God (in a way that even King David and the other psalm writers could not), I believe there is an opportunity for Christ-like humility and surrender that supersedes many of these questions. We can be part of the solution — bringing God's redemption to a fallen, sinful world — instead of constantly obsessing over why God allows a problem.
Nobody appointed me to be the church's guard dog when it comes to theology. For starters, I'm not qualified. So maybe I'm taking all this way too seriously. Even if I am, can we at least agree that this is as far as we need to go? I believe The Shack already crosses the line; but if I'm wrong, can we at least say "enough's enough"?

The first commandment is to respect and honor the Godhead. The beginning of all wisdom, according to Scripture, is to fear the Lord. The Shack, in my opinion, violates both. It is our privilege and duty to respect the God who made us, to humbly allow Him to reveal Himself or not reveal Himself as He chooses, and to live in the mystery that remains. We should reject any irreverent speculation as naïve ignorance at best, and flat out arrogant, speculative heresy at worse. Where The Shack falls in this spectrum isn't for me to judge, but its approach channels our culture's arrogant sense of entitlement far more effectively than it channels the never-changing revealed will and words, not to mention the nature, of God.

As for me, I'm grateful that God has given us His written word as an accurate, trustworthy account of who He is, what He has said, and how I may know Him — an account that every other account must be measured by. It is also an account, I'd submit, that places The Shack outside of appropriate Christian literature.

Let's be willing to live in the mystery of who God is. Let's remind ourselves that we are the ones who need to explain ourselves, not God. He is the judge; He is not the defendant. The real shack that keeps us imprisoned isn't our pain — it's our alienation from, rebellion against, and hostility toward God. That's the shack from which I wish William Young had sought Mack's liberation.

How Great is Our God

Let no man say, “There is no God”, for I have seen Him for myself. I have felt the vast expanse of His love and tender kindness to me. I have experienced His faithfulness on a moment by moment basis. There is no God but Jehovah, Lord Almighty. When the psalmist wrote “my soul longs and even faints for you”, he foretold the outcry of my heart and soul even now, tonight. Even now as I sit here basking in the twilight glow of a quarter moon, being serenaded by the host of woodland creatures singing praises to their Maker. All I can think is, “How great Thou art…”

The majesty and glory of our God is so great that it consumes even the simplest and seemingly insignificant of events. In a moment of silence, His Presence comes rushing in and reminds my feeble, selfish mind of how magnificent He is. In the face of an ever-present fatigue that threatens to subdue my body, a peace and supernatural fountain of joy spring forth involuntarily from the depths of my inner man. All I have cries out “Glory! Glory to you, Almighty God!” All I want is to see You lifted high, my Maker. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, I am not even a speck. I see how infinitesimally small I am when compared to the tiniest glimpse of You in all Your splendor.

Father, you transcend truth. Your Son is the embodiment, the very personification of Truth. Your love provided Your creation with the free will to not love you back. Your sovereignty covers all Heaven and Earth. Nothing happens or fails to happen without Your permission, oh Mighty King of Heaven. The lightning bolts and hurricanes report to you. The lions and tigers sing Your praises. Even the Earth itself calls out to you from the tiniest flower blossom of spring to the mightiest of Sequoias. Your majesty knows no bounds.

Where could I go to escape you? Why would I ever try? You are matchless in the entire universe and I can’t think of a better reason to get out of my bed in the morning. May all of my honor and praise forever be passed on directly to you, my Lord and Savior. I am absolutely nothing without You. I lay prostrate before you.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty…the whole Earth is full of His glory!

Poetic Expression: Round 5

I wrote this during a particularly trying time at Pine Cove this week. Enjoy!

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Harmony

A house divided against itself will fall
When mind wars with heart, there is no victor
When one is apart from the other, calamity reigns

There is harmony in the unity brought by submission
A mind no longer seeking to understand can instead rest
A heart no longer grasping is free to simply abide

Single-minded pursuit of unseen riches
Is all that quenches the thirsty soul
Devotion to One higher brings wind to my sails

In His arms I find my harmony, my all

Heart ramblings

Ok, this is completely separate from any journal entries this summer. This is just something that I wanted to get out of my head and so I write. I think I may have finally come to an understanding as to why I have been completely unable to remain consistent in my walk with the Lord and my behavior as a man seeking to be like Jesus Christ.

When I think about all the times that I have been disappointed in myself these last couple of years, when I think about the things I’ve said and done that have not honored Christ and all the people I have hurt or angered…I remember what usually followed after those incidents. It was a concerted effort to eliminate the unacceptable actions and prevent them from happening again.

I have spent almost my entire adult life wavering between brief periods of fervent and intimate walk with the Lord and a much larger amount of time when I am quite mediocre in my Christian walk. This summer, in these last 5 weeks or so at Pine Cove…I have again been poured into by men much wiser and more Christ-like than myself. Someone I greatly respect called me on the carpet last week on something that I really never addressed in my life. He said that my actions weren’t the problem this time, it was my heart attitude that he was concerned about. He and I had some very serious conversation for a while that night and he shared some things that the Lord has taught him in Daniel.

I have heard the phrase several times here…”it doesn’t matter how clean your hands are if your heart is still dirty.” That is so true. I have spent some time since then seeking the Lord’s face on this issue and it is becoming excessively clear that I have found the source for my complete inability to be the man I so desperately want to be.

Despite the best efforts of my hands, my heart was still thoroughly corrupted with “selfish ambition and vain conceit” as Paul calls it in Philippians 2. Those times at school that I have come across as a cocky jerk without meaning to, the times when I have “tried to help” and only succeeded in being an arrogant know-it-all, the times when I have just plain been living in sin and allowed my frustration to get the best of me…all of those can be traced to a heart that is not submitted to the sovereignty of Almighty God.

“Your body is not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body.” I have heard that verse many, many times, but it has never really sunk in until this week. I know that many people at SFA have never seen the James B. Jenkins that I so desperately want to be, a man completely devoted and submitted to the will of Jesus Christ. The weight of my total inability to ever consistently be that man has been multiplied this summer at Pine Cove.

Something has clicked this past week that I hope and pray will allow me to finally get to the root of the heart attitude that has been the core of my interpersonal problems for as long as I can remember. The qualities of a man fervently following Christ are plainly evident: genuine joy, consistently encouraging words, tact, an eager servant’s heart, etc…these are qualities that I see displayed on a daily basis by many people around me. Pine Cove is the oven that God uses to fully develop these qualities in the people He has brought here.

All this rambling to say this…if your heart is put where it belongs, your hands can’t help but follow. I know that all the things I want most will appear at their appointed time. Just as King Neb said in Daniel 4, the Lord’s sovereignty covers all. The Lord is good. His timing is perfect.

The fact that I feel way too old to still be in college and not have taken even one step towards any kind of romantic relationship means nothing. The fact that I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do after the Forge means nothing. I may not know specifics, but I know that I’m supposed to submit my life to God and trust Him to open the door when the time is right and give me the nudge to walk through it. Ok, maybe a shove…I’m a pretty stubborn guy when it comes to the big stuff.

Ok, enough. I feel like I’ve been writing for an hour. The short version is that I want more than anything to consistently be the guy I’m supposed to be, to be true to the essence of the Lord that abides in me and to be a light that shines His love and encouragement in the environment He’s divinely placed me in. Everything else is icing on the cake.

And now I feel better…if you actually read this whole rambling mess, I think you deserve a gold medal or something. Be blessed…

Concealed Carry

I was recently interviewed for a piece NBC56 out of Tyler was doing on Concealed Carry on Campus.

http://www.ketknbc.com/topvideo/18758699.html

I fully support the rights of licensed college students to carry concealed handguns wherever they so desire, college campuses included. There are a great many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I enjoy living and making sure others are alive too.

There are some risks associated with allowing students to carry firearms on campus, but most of them stem from fear and irrational paranoia. The risk of someone attempting homicidal violence at a school full of unarmed, defenseless victims should be what people are afraid of.

If we as a nation remove the guns from the hands of responsible, law-abiding citizens, then the only people who have guns will be the ones who don't care what the law says.

Go 2nd Amendment!!!

Here's my exit...or is it?

Yeah, I know...two posts in one day. Who thought it was possible?

This semester has been quite a trying one, for a great many reasons. Due to some mistakes I've made, I will be retaking Genetics again in the fall semester. This creates a problem, Organic Chemistry, Genetics and Microbiology are all that remain in my undergraduate career...the only glitch is that Genetics and Microbiology are each only offered once in the fall, and as my luck would have it, they conflict with each other.

I could take it at Angelina College, but the only section they offer conflicts with O-chem. Go figure. So I'm talking to a bunch of PA school admissions committees trying to determine if a pre-nursing Micro class would count towards the necessary prerequisites. If not, I will either have to re-evaluate my career goals (for the 124,653,234,643rd time), or be here yet another semester next spring.

This is quite the conundrum, but thankfully I'm not freaking out. One of the signs of becoming more of an adult is the ability to approach an undesirable situation with an open and discerning mindset. As always, there is something that I'm supposed to learn from this trial. Hopefully, something more than simply "don't suck at genetics, James."

Please be in prayer as I continue to seek God's will for this chapter of life. There are many goals and ambitions I have for what I want the future to look like...but none of them hold a candle to my desire to be in the center of God's will. Please pray for the courage and patience to allow that to happen in my life.

There are far too many possibilities to choose from right now. Unbridled potential is a dangerous and very exciting thing. But, just as a wild mustang is a much more useful and productive animal once it has been broken, I too must be broken and set in the right direction.

To my friends, family and loved ones...thank you ever so much for your support. You are all very near and dear to my heart. Thank you...

enrichment

I'm actively studying spanish again, for the first time in years. It is really cool how quickly the words come back even if you haven't put them to use in such a long time.

I am reminded how easy it is to let the hustle and bustle of life keep us all from really living life. The thought I have is, take the time to actively do something to enrich yourself today. Pick up an interesting book, practice your instrument if you play one, learn something on Discovery or Learning channel, go out and try a new sport or activity....do something. You'll feel better about the day, you'll get to go enjoy some of God's marvelous creation and you'll probably spend quality time with amazing people as well!

It could be even something as simple as sitting down with a friend, pushing past the typically superficial and drab "how are you?" type of conversation, and really invest in them as someone important in your life. Ask them questions that require thought, talk about things that matter, or things that really don't matter at all...doesn't matter.

If you make your seconds and minutes count for something, the hours and days can't help but follow suit. It all comes down to taking your time captive, live your life on purpose. Live intentionally. I believe that the more satisfaction we find in the life that God has blessed us with, the more glory He will inevitably receive from our endeavors (assuming our hearts are in the right place...).

As we go into the summer, try to put all that free time to good use. Even if you're going to be working or interning a lot...I guarantee you'll have more free time then you have this semester. God's given us the opportunity for an amazing life, let's go make it happen.

Be blessed...