Do You Have a Mail-Order God?

Mail order brides (or husbands) are a familiar joke in the US. Most people couldn’t be paid enough to marry someone they never met. All the pictures, recommendations, or personal bios in the world can’t convince us we know the person well enough to spend our entire lives with them.

We know we must actually meet the person before we commit our lives to them. Yet, if we have this much concern for a marriage, how is it that we are content to have others tell us about God without encountering Him ourselves?

 Sermons and Bible-reading are essential parts of a life lived for God. But at the same time, if they are all you have, you are left in the same position as a mail-order spouse – you are trying to be committed to a Person you’ve never even really met.

So many people – both in and out of the Church – look at Christianity as a bunch of rules of what you can’t do. I never had anyone tell me I could actually get to know God on a personal basis or talk to Him like a real person about any situation.

Unsurprisingly, I decided to throw the rule book out of the window and live for myself. Why would I follow instructions given by someone I’d only heard about?

Then I actually met God, and everything changed. Suddenly I wanted to know everything about Him. After church, I was spending my own time talking to Him. As I read the Bible, I asked Him what He was thinking when He said this or that.

I discovered He has a sense of humor. I found out He likes to spend time just being together with His children. I realized He has different moods, that He feels deeply, and that His heart can break with anguish and overflow with joy at the same time.

I no longer have any questions about whether or not to spend the rest of my life with God. I’ve met Him, and that settled the matter. How about you?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sow your tears

Everyone has seasons of sadness. We lose a loved one, a marriage falters, a child leaves home - any of countless things can happen to bring us there. Ecclesiastes even promises us there will be times of both weeping and rejoicing. I was in such a time myself when the Lord said something very interesting to me. He said, "Sow your tears." I had to chew on that a bit. I was focused on my tears. That's ok - God takes notice of them, too (see Ps. 56:8 ). But He said something else: "Sow." So I went to the parable of the sower. The story is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. By my 3rd read-through, I was beginning to get it. You know how it goes: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path..., on rocky places..., among thorns" (Mt. 13). For whatever reason, this farmer was being careless with his seed. After all, it was only the seed that fell on good soil that bore fruit. "Those who sow with te...
Read more

A Kingdom of Opposites

The Kingdom of God is backwards - at least to our "modern" thinking. Jesus taught that you must be last to be first and you must die to live. The Lord of all creation came to earth as an infant. The vengeful Warrior is also a loving Husband and merciful Father. Paul, one of the most powerful and impactful men in the Bible, considered himself to be the least of all people. As we walk with the Spirit, we learn we must be empty to be filled. And we must be filled to empty ourselves back out. We enter through the narrow gate, only to find ourselves in the widest possible place - the vastness of the Kingdom of God, which is continually on the increase. We continually strive to become smaller in order to hold more of Him. As we lower ourselves, He raises us up. We turn ourselves inside out before our Father, offering Him everything we are, and He reaches out to cover us. It doesn't always make sense to me, but I'm learning to accept that it's just how He...
Read more

What sound do you make?

"Every church should have a sound." I heard a pastor say that recently, and it has stuck with me. As I've mulled it over, though, it's boiled down to the individual level - every person in the kingdom of God should have a sound. But what does that really mean? "A sound?" What is that? The Lord's Prayer, from Matthew 6:9-13, includes the plea: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When you really think about that, it sounds great - but how do you really get that to happen? How do we get what's on heaven to come down here to earth? We release it. It would be wonderful if God just had to point His finger and BOOM! it's done, but that's not how He established it. He's chosen to use people. And there are morals and good deeds and all kinds of great surface stuff we can do. But this goes deeper than that. Or it can, if you're willing. Every person has the opportunity to release the so...
Read more