In any case, here's something I'd like to share with y'all:
It's difficult sometimes to know how to take the Bible, what to look for in it etc... I think that we often approach all of Scripture as one of Paul's letters: a kind of reasonable, systematic, precise account of what God is like, what he has done and how we should act in consequence.
It isn't at all so simple in practice. For example, which stories are told to serve as examples for us to follow and which ones are there to show that not even the greatest heroes are perfect bar Jesus? Let's take the life of David for example. He has a heart after God's own. A clear goody! Let's follow his example. He sleeps with Uriah's wife. Baddy! Let's recognize that Jesus alone is perfect and that God is so gracious in redeeming even the toughest of situations. However when the arch of the covenant arrives into Jerusalem and that David greets it with wild joy and dancing, I've always taken it as a call for us to be undignified before the world for the glory of God. However, there are a few things in this passage which seem to suggest to us that it is not a precedent for us to follow, not least the way that he speaks to his wife.
I'm not entirely sure what to think of that one, but I will continue in the mean time to dance for God, because the Psalms urge me to, and I will not seek to glory in this world but in Christ alone, at the expense of ridicule. But it still remains tough to know how to read this passage.
But what is even harder is the Lament! I mean these people are moaning before God, and it sometimes really comes very close to impiousness! Read Lamentations of Jeremiah, as I did the other day, and notice how Jeremiah ascribes all of the evils that have happened to Israel as God's fault! I personally love it, and find that the theology of Jeremiah is so spot on (it would be, as an inspired and inerrant Bible author!) and it states a case for the sovereignty of God as opposed to the free-will of man. But I mean it sometimes sounds like Jeremiah is saying: "what were you thinking God? Are you crazy?! Look what you've done now! Did you have to go and pull off a stunt like that? Control yourself for heaven's sake (quite literally!)" I mean, he is really worked up.
And I don't know if this is a theologically correct way of speaking, and not every word uttered in Scripture in theologically correct (take Job's comforters for example). So the question is: "what's the point? Why does God include this in his revealed Word for us?" Is God saying: "go on, have a go at me!"? I'm not sure if God is so much commending the exact content of Jeremiah's words as much as the nature of the prophet and his relationship with God and to the world. The point of the whole Bible, as exemplified perfectly in the Lament is that a relationship with God is to be lived out in the real world, in real life, for real! And life sucks! And we get fed up of it! And we don't understand it! "Why did she have to leave me?" "Why can't I get anything right at work?" "Why do I struggle with this sin which I can't shake clear of?" These are real questions, in the real world, and in all of these, God is THERE! He isn't only orchestrating from far off, he's there in it with us. He's sharing our pain, and listening intently to our complaints.
We've got to stop living as Christians pretending that everything' s OK. That is not biblical. It simply isn't. Simple trust in God doesn't mean that we should suppress feelings of doubt or of failure or of hurt. Trust in God is knowing that he is there with us. He cares about us, and will listen even to our sourest gripes. These may be sinful at times, and sometimes fringe on the heretic, but God is determined to be there. He prefers an open relationship with a worked up man than a closed, fake, smooth relationship with a seemingly perfect, all-is-well Christian. That's why Jesus went for the down-and-outs. Ever been in one of those uncomfortable situations when you're waiting at the bus stop, or at the station, or simply enjoying an afternoon read in mid-summer's sunshine and all of a sudden a bad-smelling, poorly-shaven homeless person starts complaining to you about how life sucks, and this society is all bad, and the government, and Sarkozy and bladibladibla... Well God loves those conversations! They're real! They're the people that Jesus chose to hang out with. He loves reality more than we do (agreed, he does have the slight advantage of knowing where it's all going, and being glorified by it all)...
You want to know God? Let him know you. Open up to Him. He wants you to tell him where it hurts. He doesn't want a fake relationship where you remain politely distant. He doesn't do politely distant! He leans close to your dirty, sweaty, stubbly, sinful face in all of its wretchedness and whispers in your ear: "speak to me, I want to know you. Use the swear words if they are what you really feel. Don't suppress them, we're going to work on them. I'm here to sculpt you big time to bring about big time change. So you've got to let me know you big time. The is real life. And in your real life, I'm here with you."
"19 Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street. 20 "Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 "Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity. 22 "As you summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the LORD's anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared, my enemy has destroyed." (Lamentations of Jeremiah 2.19-22)
3 commentaires:
welcome back! :-D hmmm... i often find it's more difficult to open up to God, often, I think, because I feel that if I open up to Him I have to do something about it, while if I open up to another person, then I don't have that sort of responsibility... Which isn't great, I know.
I totally get that - I'll tell God stuff, but what's the point in repenting a sin you're not prepared to repair/stop? It seems a little pointless. I'll tell him, yell at him, about it, but it's difficult to ask for forgiveness. I tend to ask in those cases for me to want to stop it...
Must say I get that too. But that's also the point, and that's also what God wants to hear. As you say Laura, if you can't say with integrity that you repent of that sin, be real with God and say that you want to want to want to do something about it, so God help me! And he'll listen. That's what fathers are supposed to God, and that's what God, in his nature, does...
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