THE SPCSHP //

The last 7 days have been total shit, which doesn’t happen often, but when it does it always draws me into a deep and selfish hole of hopelessness that I have little choice but to wallow in as life falls apart all around me, constantly sloughing itself off like a locust its body, which I imagine is both painful and stimulating - like a haircut, but with much more discomfort.

I have shit days fairly often, as we all do, but its only during a “perfect storm” like this that I fall away into outer darkness while I await the arrival of Jesus to revive me - just like Lazarus. 

In the story, Lazarus is deathly ill and his friends send for Jesus to come to his aid. So Jesus gets the news and rushes to Lazarus’s side and casts out his sickness immediately and everybody lives happily ever after.

Wait. That’s not how the story goes at all. 

Jesus doesn’t rush to Lazarus. 

Jesus doesn’t go at all. 

Lazarus dies. 

And for all his family knew, that was the end of the story. Lazarus was dead and they buried him. 

Then, FOUR DAYS LATER Jesus finally shows up. 

Talk about being late. 

If I was Lazarus’s father I would have punched Jesus in the stomach and called him an asshole for showing up like that. They sent for him about a week earlier and gave him plenty of time to do his thing and what did he do? Nothing. 

Lazarus was dead. 

Game over. 

Too late, Jesus. He’s already dead and stinking. 

Now, we all know what happens next - Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and life goes on. 

Now I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t offer me much comfort in my distress. What kind of hope can you be expected to have when you’ve been dead, buried, and in the ground for FOUR DAYS?

Was Lazarus raised to life because he never failed to give up hope? No way. He was dead. He may have held onto hope up until his dying breath, but when you’re dead, you’re just dead. No thoughts. No hope. No prayer. 

Did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead because Martha and Mary never gave up hope? I seriously doubt it. I’m no Bible scholar but as far as I can tell no one had ever been raised from the dead before Lazarus. Everyone that died stayed dead. So I would find it hard to believe that Martha and Mary were at peace knowing that Jesus would show up eventually and zap life back into their brother. 

So - the question becomes: Does Jesus rush to our aid and answer our prayers because we are stalwarts of hope? 

No. 

Why? Because Lazarus died. 

So it seems: Jesus only does what suits Jesus. 

Which is argument for trust, to be sure - but not for hope.

Hope is an issue that I feel I must hold onto as if it were my only lifeline, but as we find in the story of Lazarus, there is a point at which hope fails us along with everything else. Even Jesus. The river runs dry. 

Hope dies. Jesus doesn’t show up - and we hate him for it. 

But then, right in the midst of all mourning and anger and hopelessness - here comes that weary old bastard, shuffling casually down the dirt road, way off on the horizon, carrying with him everything I need, and in no hurry at all. 

Being a Christian who pursues the Lord as an ongoing theme of life brings with it some difficult obstacles. Pretty quickly, you’ll come to the end of yourself and one of two things will happen: 

1. You’ll stop.
2. You’ll continue.

Coming to the end of yourself means you’ve extended yourself in your pursuit of God as far as you ever have before. In high school, this point was a lot more obvious, because everything was exaggerated back then. Now its a little harder to pinpoint.

Either way though, you’d do one of those two things. Stop (making whatever connection you had with God more of a “camp high” than the beginning of a real lifetime pursuit). Or continue. Continuing is difficult. Here’s why it’s still difficult for me:

I’m set in my ways. We all are. Whoever you are, whatever you do, you’ve got certain things that you hold onto with a pretty tight grip. It doesn’t matter what these things are, it just matters that they exist, and that we acknowledge them. 

We are a boulder. Our lives are a boulder. Inside our boulder is everything. Our families, kids, friends, jobs, health, attitude, interests, etc. That boulder sits there until you move it. You are the only person that can move it.

So here’s where the problem comes in:

A fruitful lifetime of pursuing the Lord means that boulder has to move. 

We don’t like moving our boulders. It’s hard. And awkward. And too much trouble. We’re too busy to worry with it. We’ve got other things to do. Dancing with the Stars is on. 

But God doesn’t seem to care about my interests nearly as much as I do. No matter what they are, God seems to be constantly drawing me away from all my interests - not because they are unworthy pursuits, but it seems like God just wants to see what he can talk me into giving up, simply for the sake of pursuing him instead. 

God doesn’t seem to be nearly as interested in what I’m doing instead of pursuing him, just that there’s something else I’m choosing over him. 

So that’s the difficulty. 

I have things I want to do, and God wants me to clear my entire schedule for him, pretty much everyday. 

I’m not necessarily talking about those things you have to do - like going to work, and feeding your cat - although I wouldn’t put it past God to try to talk you out of those things too. 

Either way, I’m learning that as I take each step further away from myself, from pursuing my own interests, I find God to be that much more fulfilling, and exciting, and ravishing. This makes me want to get more and more creative in slashing my schedule and dropping interests and pursuing him even more. You see, it’s not just that God wants you to give things up, its that he knows that you will be happier and more fulfilled in life if you spend more time with him - thinking about him, talking about him, walking around with him. 

So as you begin to learn these things, you’ll start to trust God more and more. You’ll start to have no regard for television, or Facebook, or video games - which (let’s be honest) is a good thing.

And pretty soon you’ll be free. Totally free from all those things that used to take up all your time. Then it gets challenging again. Then you have to start fixing other odd things in your life. You’ll start drinking less Cokes. You’ll start setting your alarm clock earlier. You’ll start getting outside more. You’ll stop smoking. You’ll drink less alcohol. You’ll start finding creative ways to get alone - riding your bike, taking a long drive in the country, working in the yard - anything just to get some uninterrupted time with Jesus. Praying. Singing. Writing. Thinking. Talking. 

The boulder is moving. Things are changing. 

But now that I’ve gotten a taste, and everything else has become some pale in comparison to God, I’m finding that I’m running out of things to give up. So what happens next?

We will see. 

I just hope I keep choosing to continue when I hit a wall. That’s the other hard part.

My wife and I had a really good conversation last night about all of this. I came away with some questions, some observations, and a single piece of advice.

Questions:

1. What are you doing on a regular basis to pursue God?
2. What does it mean to “live radically”?
3. Are you living radically?
4. If no, why not?

Observations:

1. If you don’t want more of God in your life, you clearly don’t know God. If you did, you’d want more of him in your life.
2. If you don’t know God, you can’t trust God.

One More Question:

1. If you don’t want God, and you don’t know God, and you don’t trust God, what is it about you that makes you a Christian?

Further Thoughts:

1. Faith doesn’t come by works, faith comes by faith.
2. Works are not everything, but they do promote growth and progress - and progress is crucial.
3. Believing that Jesus died for your sins is important, but it is about as difficult as believing what your parents tell you about your great-grandparents.
4. Believing is easy. It is a one-time choice that you don’t go back on.
5. Pursuit is much more difficult.
6. Pursuit is active, involved, complicated, ever-changing, exciting, dangerous, risky, frustrating, challenging, and most importantly, the sole decision of the pursuer.
7. You can stop or start at any time.

If you find pursuit difficult, stop doing things that don’t work.

I am reading through Isaiah right now - and something hit me today that kind of blew my mind. The second part of chapter forty-three says a few things I hadn’t heard before.

Verse 19 sets the stage:

Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth! Do you not perceive it?!

That verse does a lot for me. Can you imagine what it might sound like to hear someone say those words with a fire in his voice? Big things are on the horizon in the next lines. The question at the end of the verse also begs another question: Are we expected to perceive what God is doing? Can we? When God does a new thing, does the Earth shift? Are Gods thoughts and physical actions somehow supernaturally perceptible? 

If we are not perceiving the new things God is doing, perhaps we aren’t paying attention. 

Then God starts to say some interesting things, and I’m not immediately sure where he’s going with it.

Verse 20:

The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches - for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people.

And then this, in verse 22: 

Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob! You have been weary of me, O Israel! You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices!

Typically in the Old Testament, when God starts ranting like this, he’s about to say that he’s going to decimate some entire population - wipe them clean from off the Earth. But this time, like he said in verse nineteen, he’s doing a new thing. Changing it up. Right when everyone is bracing themselves for the fiery burning fists of Almighty God, he cracks his knuckles and says he’s got a better idea. If I was standing there, I would have been thinking 

Oh shit.

Do you feel the foundations of the Earth shifting now?

He continues in verse 24:

You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.

At that point, I would have been running for my life. I would not have been one of the guys waiting around to find out what was going to happen next. 

And then, right when everyone is expecting the hammer to drop, he says this in verse 25, which stopped me dead in my tracks while reading this morning:

I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. 

Woah. What? 

You can just decide not to remember my sins? 

Wait. What does that even mean - you’re blotting out my sins for your own sake? 

I have no idea what’s happening here. 

The same God that was infamous for wiping out entire countries of people just says “You know what, screw it. I’m sick of anger. Sick of blood. It’s time for something new. “

Rather than killing us all again, God chooses selective ignorance. 

He doesn’t want to go through it all again. He’s ready for his people to be good, but he knows we will keep failing time and time again. So instead of trying to make us be good, he just decides to blot out the bad. 

Ever blotted something out in a book? You can’t read it anymore. It’s like it was never there. Might as well forget about it. So he does. 

Keep in mind - he said he’s doing this for his own sake. Not ours - his. He doesn’t forgive us so that he can love us - he already loves us. He does’t have a problem with loving us. He forgives us so that he can get through a day without thinking about how terrible we all are. He forgives us so he can sleep at night without the guilt of knowing he created an entire race of miserable, horrible people.

He forgives us to take the burden off his shoulders, not ours. 

You see, our sins used to be burdensome to God, but now they are just a burden on us. Our sins are now ours to remember, not Gods. 

The language of sin-confession to God is like gibberish to him. He hears us, but it doesn’t make any sense. He has no memory of it. 

We don’t get to dump our guilt off on him. 

He’s been burdened by our sins long enough - now its time for us to be burdened by them. We have to deal with them. We have to make things right. We have to confess to and forgive one another down here. God doesn’t correct our sins anymore because he’s blotted them out. He’s chosen not to remember them. 

If we get in a tight spot down here because of our sins it’s our own damn fault. God doesn’t hurl lightning bolts on sinful heads anymore. God doesn’t kill people or cause droughts or spread plagues - we do. 

It’s time we dealt with things in our own lives - for our own sake. God doesn’t even know about your sin, but you do. It’s in there, swimming around in your head like poison. 

Spit it out. 

Drop your burdensome sins on the ground like a brick. Shoot them off into space like a rocket. Free your mind from the awful stings of deceit and lust and anger. 

Oh, they are so dreadfully burdensome, are they not?

I used to find some solace in being able to drop off my backpack full of sins at the feet of God everyday - knowing full well I’d be cram-packing a new one the next day to drop off the same way. But God doesn’t want our sins. That backpack is invisible to him.

He wants our attention. He wants our companionship. He wants our affections. 

He’s grown weary of sin. He grew weary of it a long time ago - and we should too. 

Let’s change what we do. Let’s throw off those raggedy old chains and turn our faces towards the one who stayed up nights racked with fret and weariness over our foolishness while we slept peacefully trusting in his unrelenting protection over us. 

We’ve done wrong by God. 

God is the good mother that cries for her children while they were out rampaging to their own detriment - and that kind of crying is exhausting. He got to the point where he said he was done with it. He has forgiven and he has totally forgotten. 

But oh, how he longs for his daughters to come home at the end of that long night and fall trembling into his arms, resting there for all eternity. 

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