God is not a magic 8 ball!
My lifegroup has been reading the book “Blue Like Jazz”. It’s been a really interesting book and an enjoyable read. This week we discussed the chapter on worship. Don, the author, said something that really jumped out at me. He said, “I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror or awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict him, to dissect him, to carry him around in our dog and pony show. We are too proud to feel awe and too fearful to feel terror. We reduce him to math so we don’t fear him, yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom.” What really struck me, was the part about reducing God to math so that we can predict him as opposed to fear him. I thought about all the times that I have turned God into a math problem, for example…
1. Read the Bible + Prayer = good things will happen to me and I will get what I want
2. Pray + Read the Bible + Don’t mess up = God is happy with me
3. Read my Bible + Don’t mess up + spend all my time at church = I am a better Christian then you.
While, I think all of those things (reading the Bible, prayer, service, etc), are wonderful things and things that we can do to honor God, I don’t think we can boil it down to an equation because God does not work in the confines of our human parameters. In lifegroup we talked about how often, when making a decision, we have felt that God kind of “wrote the answer in the sky”. We all answered, “one time that I can really remember.” Hmm…interesting. I know that all of those women have prayed, read their Bible, and sought the Lord more than just once. I read in a book once that we ask God to tell us when, where, how, and why, and then we will trust him. I think this is true. We want answers. We want God to tell us what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and where to do it. Can we call that trust?? Doesn’t that just reduce God to a magic eight ball. “God should I move to Wisconsin and take a new job”…shake, shake, shake… “all signs point to yes.” God is not that simple! Not to mention that I don’t really think we could call what we have with him a relationship. Can you have a relationship with a magic 8 ball?? The other danger to reducing God to an equation is that we get totally thrown when the equation doesn’t hold up. What happens when we pray, read our Bible, and seek God and something doesn’t turn out right?! We are shaken…”what did I do wrong?!” Well, maybe nothing, I mean maybe you did, but maybe you didn’t. Maybe God is just bigger and more mysterious than that. But seriously, if God really were like a magic 8 ball or a math formula, how fun would life be? Life would not be fun at all! Life, would actually not be worth living. Why learn, grow, change, and take chances if all you had to do was shake a little black ball to know the next step. I could go on, but I feel this is quite long enough. Perhaps Don’s words will strike something in you as well!
posted by The everyday extraordinary | 10:57 PM
3 Comments:
Kate,
I think we’re coming from the same direction on this issue. Recently I read something to the same effect. “We tend to use the Bible as an answer book. But the Bible is more than that. It thrusts us into an encounter with the Word of God. It is the Bible that questions us and waits for our response. When we begin with our own questions, like ‘Where do you want me to go?’ we have to come up with our own answers.” Your words encouraged me today Kate.
~Pete
I think our culture (and I mean Christian Culture) is standing at a cross-roads. Of course I'm pulling this from my own experience, so I could be totally off. But I tend to have one of three experiences with worship:
Sometimes I see worship as something expected of me, a hoop that I need to jump through before God can do anything (the genie in the lamp). And so I sing (because that's what worship has become these days) the popular christian worship tunes of the year ritualistically until God moves from pure monotonous boredom.
Other times worship becomes something to make me feel good or to feel an "emotional connection" for an hour or so. And so when I am not moved emotionally I clam up and see no reason to praise God and complain that the worship "did nothing for me."
And finally, there are times when I worship out of the thankfulness of God being God and me knowing His grace. I can be comforted by His awe and wonder at His terror. Those times are few and far between. I can't wait until the church finally opens her heart with passion like we tend to do at a concert or football game.
I'm a little frustrated with the Christian Culture because of the emphasis on musical worship as opposed to seeing all of our actions as a form of worship. Man, when we are fulfilling the two greatest commands we are in prime worship.
Pete, I like your comment about the bible forcing an encounter with God. I've been trying to view the bible as of late as less of a road map of life and more of a compass. It gives us a heading and a destination, but we have to take our bearings choose our own paths. Your statement adds a personal guide to that equation. Now I am in the mood for some Oregon Trail.
i read blue like jazz my junior year at college. it really changed me. don miller is a genious.
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