The God Who Destroys False Impressions

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast.

Lewis, C. S. (2009-06-02). A Grief Observed (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (p. 51). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

After C.S. Lewis' wife died, he filled nearly four journals with his thoughts and impressions, chronicling and hopefully channeling his grief. The four volumes were published under a pseudonym, for fear that if anyone knew what he was really thinking, it would turn them down a path he didn't wish them to go. It's one thing for an anonymous griever, as it were, to think such things about God. It's another thing for a cherished Christian author to feel that way. Or at least such was the theory.

Eventually the volumes were correctly attributed to him and they are fascinating because of their honesty and for the depth of thought that Lewis is known for bringing to the table. As he processes his grief, he moves from a state of anger with God, where he cannot possibly fathom why it feels like God would be so distant now as opposed to when things were going well to a state of...is it acceptance? It's a deeper understanding, that is for sure. 

One such understanding stood out to me, above. It's true that we have an idea about God. We think certain things about God. Each of us has an impression of who God really is, much of which is wrong, but all of which falls ultimately short of a true understanding. I've often quoted A.W. Tozer who said that what we believe about God is the most important thing about us. It's a true statement in it's own right. Our view of God will shape how we view the rest of the world; it is certainly to be the central thought in the life of the Christian person, but the thought is equally true of the skeptic. Not believing in God, or simply not thinking of him at all, is just as important in determining how we view the rest of the world and the cosmos and everything in it.

Lewis would agree, but he would add a caveat. Not only is whatever we believe about God the most important thing about us, but it's so important, in fact, that God himself will seek to root out and destroy any false thoughts or false impressions that we have about him. It does us no good to pray to a God who doesn't really exist; whatever we think God is, Lewis points out, is not a divine idea at all. It's typically our own idea or our own interpretation. As such, it falls short in such immeasurable ways that it is the only loving thing that God can do to weed out such falsities. We need to know the real God, not the one that we made up.

This is another of the "temptations" that C.S. Lewis points out in his book The Screwtape Letters. Wormwood the demon is instructed not so much to stop his subject from praying–although that would be the ideal–but rather to have him pray in such a way where the God he is praying to or the outcome that he is praying for is not based on truth of who God actually is, but rather is based on his own impression of who God is. Thus he will walk away feeling as if he did his righteous duty, but will have had zero impact at all, since whatever he prayed was almost certainly his own will, based on his own idea of God, rather than based on the truth of God and his actual will. 

So God takes great pains to destroy the image that we have of him that is inaccurate, and one of the ways that he does that is through suffering. We humans are somewhat of a self-centered bunch, and no matter how righteous or others-focused we appear to be the reality is that most of our efforts and energies are poured into a world that revolves around us. God's blessings toward us, his enthusiasm towards us, his love of us, all seem to wrap around our own self-interest. The second that something appears to not be in our self-interest, we immediately turn on God; we act as if he's this spiteful, vengeful being who, after all this, would make our lives terrible. But here is the trouble: it was never about us to begin with. It wasn't about our self-interest, at least not the way we define it (another mythical area of our belief, the one in which we think we have the means to articulate what really, ultimately, is in our best interest.) If it is about our self-interest, then our self-interest stems from our knowledge of the real God, the real source of life, and not the fanciful version that we learned about in Sunday School. Anything else is a fraud.

So C.S. Lewis would say in his masterful lecture, The Weight of Glory, that we go on settling for mud pies in a slum because we cannot possibly understand what is meant by a holiday at sea. We settle for the mundane and the false, rather than pursuing the truth and the life. And God would have none of that for his most favorite creation.

Thoughts on Education

As a Christian, I believe the most important thing that I can teach my children is that God loves them, and that as a result of that love shown to them through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, they can love God and others and ultimately experience what life was always intended to be about. I can achieve everything else as a parent, but if I fail to teach them that exceptionally good news, I've won nothing. I can't control the outcome when they leave my house, of course, but I can do everything in my power to teach them that good news so that it has the best chance of "sticking" even without me around.

It's important that Christians put education, generally speaking, in that context. Some time back I read an article or a book (I can't remember where or I would give proper attribution) and the author stated emphatically that there is no "religiously neutral education". I considered the premise and believe that he was right. The truth is that we will either view the world through the lens of God's existence, so that everything contains traces of his goodness and wonder, or we will view it through some other lens; namely, a lens in which he does not exist. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot say that God is powerful and worth knowing, but unnecessary in relation to the rest of our studies, as if God has nothing to say about writing, or arithmetic, or our basic ability to communicate through words and language, let alone whether or not his existence has any bearing on the universe or why things are the way that they are or why we interact the way that we do. If God is unnecessary for the study of any of these things, then as one philosopher suggested, God may as well be dead. We simply don't need him anymore.

On the other hand, if God does have something to say about all of these subjects, as the Christian believes that He does, then we must approach the education of our children with that conviction. Writing is no longer simply about "grammar", but it is about the wonder that we can even communicate at all, or that we can pass things on to other generations, or that thoughts can become sentences which can become complex arguments or narrative that can be written down and passed on and can create a sense of enjoyment in a person we have never even met. Math is no longer about the memorization of equations or facts but is instead about the way that God has ordered the world so that there are "laws" and "patterns" that always hold true, in every circumstance. Biology is no longer simply about why things are the way that they are, but is instead about what these things tell us about God and his design and plan and wisdom in creating things the way that he did. Studying the cosmos reminds us that things may not always be the way that they seem; that perhaps God used methods and timeframes that we cannot even possibly wrap our minds around in his sovereign control over the entirety of all that is.

I might argue that if we lose the wonder of who God is in the education of our children then it is nearly as serious a flaw as if we forget to teach our kids to love Jesus. That is not to suggest that they are on the same level. Failure to teach about Jesus has eternal implications; failure to view education through the lens of God's sovereignty may just incur temporary boredom. But it is a tragic boredom! It is a similar type of boredom that leads our culture to endure education for the sake of a future promise or paycheck. The type of boredom that makes us stick it out, even though it stinks. To learn math because we have to. To ask the teacher, "when am I ever going to use this?", only to have her give you some canned response about the importance of grammatical construction of a sentence when you are an adult when the teacher knows full well that the answer is, "you probably won't have to use it, except to pass the test."

The Christian can answer the question differently! It's not about whether you "use it". More importantly, what do we discover about God through it? That is the important piece!  

This is why education matters for our children. More important than whether or not they memorize facts is whether or not they understand God's purpose in creating those facts to begin with, and then, when we understand them, how we can use them to make a difference in the world.

More Than One Question

If I could encourage you in one way, it might be this, that you not approach God with a single question and then seek to determine what you think about God based on his answer to that question.

Far too many of us approach God this way, with our single question in hand, a test for God, if there ever was one, to see if he measured up to our ideas of what he should be like. Based on his response we then determine whether he is worth our love.

The problem with this approach is that it is too simplistic. If there really is a God, it would be impossible to know everything that there is to know about him from a single question. Further, I wouldn’t even want someone to judge my worth–and certainly not base their love for me–on any single question they may ask, no matter how positively I can answer the question! If before I were married my future wife came up to me and said, “do you like ice cream?” and I responded that I did, she may love me for the moment but be quite disappointed when she finds out that I don’t like having a conversation after 7 pm. If my desire for ice cream were the only thing true of me, or at least, the only thing she knew to be true of me, then her love would be so incomplete for me that it is only marginally better than no love at all. Indeed, it may even be worse, since her knowledge of me is so small that there is a high likelihood that, in the future, she will find out things about me that she will eventually grow to hate.

On the other hand, she may ask me a much more important question than my regards for ice cream. For example, she might ask me if I ever get very angry. And I would have to respond that I did, at times, get extremely angry. I may yell and curse when I get angry, although it is not the norm. If my future wife determined that I was not worth loving because of the way I answered that singular question, it would be just as tragic or worse than if she loved me based solely on my affinity for ice cream. Her knowledge remains incomplete; she cannot possibly understand me based on whether or not I like ice cream or whether or not I ever got angry.

Too often we approach God with singular questions intended to call him out, or characterize him into someone we can understand. Sometimes we do it so we can love him based on his answer, sometimes we do it because we already hate him, but it would be much easier if we had a reason. At best, the questions are a reflection of our heart; they cannot reflect the full truth of God.

If I were to approach God and ask him if he could ever forgive me, for example, the answer would be a resounding ‘Yes!’ Yes, he can forgive you! But to ask that question, no matter how positive the response, is to have a severely limited view of God. It may be the answer we were looking for, and even hoping for, but it is not the answer we ultimately need. Knowing that forgiveness is possible is an entirely different proposition than knowing how to attain that forgiveness; knowing that God can forgive without knowing how or why he forgives is incomplete. And, much the same as my wife loving me based on ice cream is dangerous, so loving God with such an incomplete knowledge of God is dangerous as well. For if I leave his presence and all I know is that he can forgive, but I forgot to ask him how, then it may be that I will never receive the forgiveness that I had been inquiring about in the first place.

I may also approach God and attempt to force him into a corner. How many would love to question whether or not God brought about the latest suffering, or the cancer, or allowed their sibling or parent to die at such a young age? We approach him with indignation and demand from him, “did you let this happen?” When he answers “yes”, as we assumed He would, there is no need for further questioning. That one answer gave us all that we need to know; we have no interest in a God who would allow that type of pain in our lives.

The problem is in our assumption that God’s knowledge is as limited as our knowledge. Our rationale goes something like this: If I cannot possibly picture a reason why this suffering may have come upon me, then it must not possible that there is a reason at all. My future spouse would be operating according to that rationale if she chose not to give me a chance after finding out that I sometimes get very angry. The problem, of course, is that she may not know why I get angry, nor has she even considered the possibility that there may be a reason for someone to be very angry. She has made her choice; she cannot picture a reason for someone to ever get angry, and so a reason must not exist. In the same way many of us miss out on God because we don’t like his answer to a singular question. We hear his answer and determine that it’s all we need to know. God is not worth our time.

And so we’re back at the beginning: do not approach God with one question that you believe will be the silver bullet for determining whether or not God is someone who should be loved. Rather, ask the deeper questions; the ones that lay beneath your desire to have an answer to the one you think is so pressing. Perhaps there is more to God than you originally thought. Perhaps he loves you more than you know. Perhaps the answer to the question you once thought so important that it could not wait will eventually be found to be meaningless, in light of the wonder of who God really is.

Are you willing to find that out?

Misleading Questions and the Vision for Your Life

I admit that when I started writing this morning, I began by rhetorically asking the wrong question.

The question I had planned on considering in this post was: "what would you do if you could do just one thing?" This was the question I was asked over and over and over again in an attempt to help me understand what I ought to do with my life. I suppose I was asked a similar question to this one in High School on one of those tests that was supposed to help me figure out my future. As I got older, the question was framed differently: "what would you do if you never got paid?" Or, on the flip side, "what would you do if you had a million dollars?" (Most of my life, it seemed to me that the only person to ever have answered that question truthfully was Peter Gibbons: "Nothing. I'd do absolutely nothing.") Unfortunately, it's the wrong question, and a misleading one at that.

First, it's the wrong question because God has already given us a "one thing to do". If the "doing just one thing" question has any value, it is supposed to guide every other choice that you make. If you can figure out the one big thing, the "vision for your life", then you can figure out everything else that you need to do to get there.

I remember reflecting on this several years ago when I was thinking about my career choice. I had been in ministry for several years and I was frustrated at where I was. For some reason it occurred to me that if I wanted to switch careers, I would need to figure out what I wanted to do and then if I could figure that out, it would guide my choices for today. When my time finally came to enter this new career, maybe several years from now, I would be ready because I would have been targeting it the whole time. I decided the same thing had to happen for me in ministry. At the time, I may not have had a particular assignment, but if I really felt the call to be in ministry, it was imperative that I continue to prepare myself. That way, when my number got called, I was ready to go.

The Bible gives every Christian a "one thing to do" that ought to give us guidance and vision for everything else that we do. To be a Christian means that we have put our total confidence in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to reconcile us to God. This reconciliation was necessary because we were on a path of destruction; we were living our own way, chasing our own dreams, ignoring God's will and reign. We were in bondage; now we have been set free.

What follows from that freedom is a new mission: to bring glory to God because of the work of Jesus Christ. Everything you do now will be to that end. It is the primary calling on your life; the thing that guides every choice you make. The Christian declares, "My goal is to advance the Kingdom of God and to ensure that His will is done in this domain, the earth, as it is in the domain of Heaven."

This is the lead calling in the life of the Christian, that,  when you have understood it, will profoundly influence how you answer the question above about the "one thing you would do". It answers the question and unseats whatever answer was there before. All of us, no matter our daily occupations, are kingdom builders. That is "the one thing that we must do."

In my experience most people are unable to articulate this as their chief end or their purpose. They believe that Christianity is about being good, or doing the right things, or about being moral or ethical or Republican or Democrat or accepting or loving or tolerant. Jesus has moved from being "savior who calls us into a new kingdom" to "good example who teaches us how to live". They were never told in advance that following Christ means a radical alteration of how we view the world and our purpose within it. The broad implications of this are that the church isn't making much headway advancing the actual kingdom of God. A kingdom that reflects us? Sure. But not a kingdom that reflects God's will and his ideals.

It is imperative that we understand this primary goal and chief calling. Without it, our life will reflect only our desires and our passions and our will and will never be guided by the desires, passions, and will of God. And they might be vastly different things. 

Second, because God's "one thing" adds purpose and redeems our real life. Is it just me, or does the "one thing" question lead you to a point where you start to feel like unless you do something massive and extraordinary, you are sort of a waste of space?

I was reading the story of William Wilberforce this morning, the man who is credited with leading England to abolish the slave trade in the 18th century. We read a story like his and then we ask, "so what is God calling ou to do?" And the result is that we feel obligated to come up with something huge and world-changing: I'm going to abolish sex-trafficking or hunger or malaria or become the pastor of a mega-church or write a best-seller on the Gospel or whatever. Or, on the other side, we just get depressed. Depressed because we realize that most of those things seem hopelessly unrealistic.

Here's the thing about Wilberforce: when he became a Christian, he was already a member of Parliament. He was already influential. He was young. His buddy was the Prime Minister. He was wealthy. He had a bunch of tools in place and didn't really know what to do with them; up until he became a Christian, he had basically squandered all of it and used it to his own gain. Then Jesus showed up. Far from sitting him down in a room and saying, "now William, what is the one thing you would do?", Jesus instead gave William's work real and lasting value. Now, William knew, my goal is to glorify God. How has God set me up to do that?

Interestingly, William almost derailed what was eventually God's plan for his life by trying to answer the "one thing" question on his own terms. If you asked him after he became a Christian, "what is the one thing you would do if you could only do one thing" William would have said, "be a member of the clergy." Thank goodness he never did that. The right answer was, "glorify God". He didn't need to be a member of the clergy to do that.

God's purpose for your life gives your life direction and purpose that is already higher and more important than whatever you could come up with yourself. The Christian person raising kids in suburban New Jersey and the Christian person trying to solve world hunger have both been given the same purpose, the same "one thing": to glory God and bring his kingdom and will in the world. Some of us do that by raising Christian children who will run Christian businesses and operate with proper ethics and do their job well and earn money so they can give it away. Others of us will do that by moving to a remote village somewhere in the world and explaining the Gospel to it's inhabitants. What gives any of our work meaning is this: it is for the glory of God.

A much better question for the Christian, then, ought to be this. How am I advancing the kingdom of God and his will in the life that I already live? And then, how can I invite others along with me on the journey?

You are a kingdom builder already; what you are doing is already extraordinary. It is supernatural. You are bringing God's kingdom here as it is there. That's your task, no matter what you are doing today.

And that's the reality that ought to shape our choices today, and our vision for our future.